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What India needs to dominate world cricket

If Australian cricket is on the decline in the shadow of Steve Waugh's retirement, and I am not convinced it is, then which country is most likely to assume its mantle? India has troubled Australia in the last two series, home and away, and appears to be a likely candidate.

India's rise to prominence in recent times has been mainly due to an extremely gifted batting line-up. The top six of Sehwag, Chopra, Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Laxman is the equal of anything going around in Test cricket today and is as good as the best of the past. For India to stay at the top and, if it wants to dominate as Australia and the West Indies have done, it needs to develop an equally potent bowling attack.

The skeleton of a dominant attack exists with Zaheer, Agarkar, Nehra, Pathan, Balaji and Harbhajan but it will need two or three of the pace quintet to develop and become marquee players if India is to go to the next level. Interestingly, if history is any guide, Pakistan is the country more likely to produce the pace bowlers to take it to the top.

The annals of Test cricket in the modern era suggest that the team with the best fast bowlers wins. Australia dominated the 70's on the back of Lillee and Thomson ably supported by the swing of Max Walker and Gary Gilmour with the orthodox spin of Ashley Mallett providing the variety.

Encouraged by the theory of four pace bowlers, the West Indies took it to another level and hectored its way to the top to dominate world cricket for the best part of two decades. Viv Richards and Larry Gomes were the only concessions to subtlety that Clive Lloyd entertained during that period. The fact that it also had the best batting line-up of its era, or any other for that matter, and that it was the best all round fielding team I have seen, meant it won on all surfaces, anywhere, anytime.

Australia has been the dominant team recently and that has been built on the back of a dominant pace attack with the added bonus of the best leg spin bowler to have ever played the game and exceptional fielding.

Wicket conditions in Australia have been the main reason for the seemingly endless supply of match-winning bowlers. To survive and prosper under Australian conditions you have to either bowl quick or you need to be a quality spin bowler. Very few countries in the world have the variety of conditions and soil types to produce the range of wicket conditions that exists in Australia. Pakistan is probably the closest in soil types and range of wickets to produce the right type of bowlers to win Test matches.

The problem for India, in my opinion, is that it is a back breaking task on the slow, low fare of wickets that are provided at all levels of the game and this eventually breaks the spirit of even the most willing pace aspirant. Kapil Dev and Javagal Srinath have been the two most successful pace bowlers from India and neither has been an out and out fast bowler. Both relied on the subtleties of the fast bowlers trade. Kapil was an old-fashioned type of bowler who pitched the ball up and predominantly swung it away from the right-handers while Srinath used his height and movement from the seam to great effect.

An attitude that suggests that Indian teams are better suited to bat and bowl on these wickets, because that is what they have grown up on, is also part of the problem. This and the fact that most touring teams struggled under these conditions has discouraged any review of this belief. Winning at home was all that seemed to be important.

Indian cricket has come of age and is ready to take its place as a leader on and off the field. To do that it needs to be prepared to take more risks and to provide the conditions that will allow it to produce the match winning bowlers that will prepare it to win at home and abroad. This means seeking out the soil types that will allow the wickets to get harder and provide both the pace and bounce that is the ally to good bowlers of all types.

Having been with Dennis Lillee a number of times over the years at the MRF Pace Foundation, I have seen some good young pace prospects that have never seen the light of day at the International level. Something must be stopping them from getting through the system and that needs to be remedied at the earliest opportunity for India to turn its statistical advantage over the rest of the cricket world into actual domination.

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