This is the best group of fast bowling India has produced – Ian Bishop

Former West Indies fast bowler Ian Bishop rated the current lot of Indian fast bowlers as the best which is ever produced by the country. India has always been known to be a batting powerhouse but the team was never able to produce fast bowlers consistently. Bowlers like Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan impressed with their skills but they were often the lone warriors in the team.

However, India has been able to turn the tide in the recent past. The pace battery of Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and Bhuvneshwar Kumar have taken giant strides in the last couple of years and they have been instrumental in the success of the team.

All the fast bowlers have worked hard on their fitness and they have reaped fruits for the same. In fact, the Indian captain Virat Kohli is known to back fast bowlers to the hilt and he has given them the right confidence.

Bishop believes that India understood that they needed fast bowlers to win in overseas conditions and they have worked hard on the same. It is known that one team can not win a Test match unless they pick up all the 20 wickets and it doesn’t matter how many runs you can score.

Bishop added that the Indian board has paid special attention to the fast bowlers. MRF pace foundation and NCA have played a key role and the pitches have been prepared accordingly to suit fast bowlers.

“It is perhaps the best generation of talents of fast bowling India have produced. And it started a while ago,” Bishop told Harsha Bhogle on Cricbuzz in Conversation. “We can go back to Zaheer Khan, RP Singh, Munaf Patel and that little cluster that came through after Javagal Srinath, who followed Kapil Dev. It’s great to see.

“It seemed to me from the outside that there was a deliberate attempt by India to recognise that ‘batsmen were good, but if have to win overseas, we have to get players from the MRF Pace Foundation and the NCA coming through, try to prepare pitches to encourage these faster bowlers rather than dusty turners’.

It has been a collective bowling performance from the Indian fast bowlers. Ishant Sharma is the improved fast bowler in the last two years. Shami has one of the best seam positions and he can reverse swing the ball. Bumrah has got off to a great start in his Test career and he has bamboozled the best in the business.

The opposition can never breathe easy as all of them have been at their absolute best. The trio had scalped 48 wickets on the Australian tour in 2018-19 and played a key role in India’s first ever win on Australian soil.