The Hindu : Sport : Injured fast bowlers need to be handled with care

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Tuesday, Oct 02, 2007
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Injured fast bowlers need to be handled with care

The process of grooming fast bowlers is amateurish, writes Makarand Waingankar

— PHOTO: AFP

CALLING ATTENTION: Bowlers like Munaf Patel need proper rehabilitation programme to get back into the Indian team.

Munaf Patel has always been an enigma. He was hailed as the find of the season in 2004-05 after he was spotted by Kiran More at a summer camp in Vadodara. His natural style was encouraged and in the subsequent years, he made the batsmen hop with his speed and bounce on flat Indian pitches.

Munaf is now struggling to cross the 130km barrier. The worst thing about the situation is that his integrity is being questioned. He is being accused of hiding injuries and not showing any interest in the game. When he was playing for Mumbai, he was thought of as a replacement for Zaheer Khan whose switching over to Baroda had left Mumbai without a bowler of genuine pace.

Fitness problem

Not having known how to work on fitness, Munaf possibly didn’t know what needed to be done with his fitness issues. A fast bowler has a problem motivating himself when not fully fit and the amount of time that he spends in recovery is invariably far short of what is needed.

Munaf is suffering from this syndrome. When staying at his hometown in Ilkhar, he doesn’t have facilities for undergoing a rehabilitation programme.

He reminds us of young fiery Pandurang Salgaonkar, who once picked up five wickets in each innings against a strong South Zone team on a slow turner at Chepauk. Despite some superb performances, he was ignored for the 1974 England tour. That was the end of Salgaonkar.

The training programme for a fast bowler depends on his ability to withstand the pressure of that programme as it has to be meticulously planned and implemented.

There have been fast bowlers who have pushed themselves a bit more than they were told to, and not only did they lose the pace and the swing but hurt themselves in the process of inadvertently changing their action.

L. Balaji and Irfan Pathan seemed to be the victims of this syndrome. Pathan gradually is getting back to his rhythm, but for Balaji it’s becoming increasingly difficult.

Fast bowlers on the Indian domestic circuit have a common complaint that not only are they required to bowl consistently fast but also most of the coaches and captains, being batsmen, don’t seem to understand what needs to be done to keep the bowler fresh. And when they — coaches and captains — do get a wicket-taking bowler or one who they feel is capable of running through a side, they get him to bowl long spells. That creates a major problem.

Why it is that Mumbai produces quality batsmen but not even half a dozen quality bowlers of international calibre?

Fast bowlers end up playing more than 40-50 matches on substandard Mumbai maidans in a season and when they get injured, they don’t get the much-needed recovery time.

Most of the time, they are forced to play while injured.

Not a solution

Though it’s a good move, appointing Ravi Shastri as the Chairman of the NCA is not a solution to the problem fast bowlers in India face.

It’s the chain of rehabilitation centres handled by the experts in major districts that will ensure Indian fast bowlers don’t spend more time on the physio’s table.

Conducting courses for coaches, physios and trainers at the NCA may help straighten the kinks out of the system, but Indian cricket will continue to miss out on talented fast bowlers if the NCA continues to ignore their plight.

It’s not that we are incapable of producing Brett Lees. The problem is after unearthing a potential genuine fast bowler, the process of grooming is absolutely amateurish. The sooner we address the problem, the better it will be for Indian cricket.

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