An old cricketing stereotype about India entirely revolved around wristy batters and wily spinners. The willow-wielders with their wide bouquet of aesthetic shots were expected to defy geometry on the turf. The practitioners of the slow-art were supposed to spin a web, luring perplexed batters to their doom. This was essentially about poetry at one end while a lullaby held the other point of the spectrum.
How about some rock-and-roll that rested on fast bowlers? Well at one point, gentle coughs ensued, throats were cleared and a whisper traipsed into waiting ears: “Oh they are supposed to just take the shine off the ball before the Bedis, Prasannas, Chandrasekhars and Venkataraghavans spun their wares.” Indian speed merchants were deemed non-existent or at best were relegated to the realm of being an afterthought.
But do take a leap backwards in time, revisit India’s first ever Test against England at Lord’s in 1932. The visitors may have lost that game but its seam bowlers, specifically Mohammad Nissar and Amar Singh, were deemed potent, incisive and truly living up to that moniker ‘fast’.
