Contributions - Bowling

Picking up wickets; the primary goal of every bowler. Although picking up wickets is significant for the bowler’s reputation and performance, there are so many other things a bowler can do to develop his reputation and cement his place in the team.

So many different forms of cricket have developed today which demand many different roles from bowlers. The game is being made shorter and shorter, twenty20 is the talk of the town today. It has come to such a stage that wickets are not relevant in the bowler’s statistics in some forms of the game. In twenty20 for example, keeping the runs down is more relevant than picking up wickets.

Even in the longer version of the game, there are different roles that can be played by bowlers. For example, India used to play with four spinners in the seventies. In this team, Chandrashekar and Bedi were the primary wicket takers. Venkat was always bowling from the other end, making sure nothing went out of hand. Chandrashekar was known to be inconsistent. He could soar to levels unimaginably high and then again swoop to levels inexplicably low. When he came to these low levels, he would be smacked around the park and, if Geoff Boycott was old enough to be a commentator then, I’m pretty sure his ‘mum coulda’ hit those balls for six.’ This was where Venkat was important in the team. He would make sure that runs are not given free at both ends. He would then also take wickets and take over Chandrashekar’s role in the team (to a certain extent at least.) Venkat once said that he used to flight the ball quite a bit more in the Ranji games he played as against the international games; this in itself shows how a bowler can play many different roles in the team.

Bowling in different manners (not necessarily to pick up wickets) is also important for bowlers.-BS