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Cricket and Sports: Anything on Sports | | Don’t put the entire blame on bowlers | |
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this is direct posting of a news article in HT cricket at http://www.hindustantimes.com/htcricket/60_38984.htm
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When experts slam Indian bowlers for dismal performance, they are expressing a pro-batsman bias. I concede that no team should be allowed 600-plus runs.
I also concede that Nehra sprayed the ball around and Harbhajan was sadly ineffective. But the issue is larger: Why do bowlers get bashed while batsmen escape criticism?
There is, one feels, a caste system in operation -- full of discrimination. Bowlers can be blamed for not winning matches, but not for causing defeats. The same argument, put differently, says bowlers win Test matches whereas batsmen lose matches (as Indians did at Lord's), or at best, in case of sturdy resistance, prevent defeat (as happened at Trent Bridge).
On good pitches, it is difficult to dislodge top players. And that is why Indian bowlers struggle abroad. Yet, on the same tracks, Indian batting collapses and we slump.
Enough runs are rarely on the board, this when we possess formidable artillery. The harsh reality is Indian bowlers, especially quicks, bowl on batsmen-friendly wickets and on getting punished are summarily sacked. Unfair, isn't it?
This happens in varying degrees in every cricket team -- there exists an unsaid, imperceptible friction between teammates who are on the same side. That cricket is a game of bat and ball, one team versus another, is well known. But this silent battle, unfolding under the surface, is not so apparent.
In a way, this maara maari rests on age-old, institutionalised discrimination. Bowlers get the rough end of the stick -- they will tell you that cricket is a batsman's game.
One swift glance at the laws confirms this. Batsmen receive the benefit of the doubt, they can't be leg before if the ball lands outside leg. Bowlers can't bowl bouncers and are subjected to all kinds of restrictions.
ODI rules are even more one-sided, because they were crafted for batsmen. These matches are nothing but tailor-made stages for batsmen to slaughter bowling; the bowlers are there to make a spectacle of themselves.
The basic appeal of limited-over contests lies in shots being played and boundaries hit -- who cares a hang for good bowling?
Forget rules, cricket works in favour of batters in so many other ways as well. Batsmen are stars, the show boys, the magnets who drive the game. They get kissed, receive applause, commercial endorsements, awards (Paaji is an exception).
They are role models. Batsmen become captains more often than not. In fact, till recently, a debate raged whether bowlers are capable of handling this responsibility.
Another way bowlers are short-changed is that their careers are shorter. The physical demands are such that a batsman can cope with declining faculties but not a bowler.
Between them, Sachin, Dravid and Sourav have about 20,000 runs and some 50 Test hundreds. Compared to them, Nehra / Agarkar/ Zaheer are kids. There is a colossal mismatch in ability and performance. Take it easy on the bowlers!
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express you views on it
thanks
prasad
Posted by: Mr. Venkata Durga Prasad Rachabatthula At: 20, Aug 2002 11:06:05 AM IST
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