Post-Kapil, India's pace bank has grown

Since the advent of Kapil Dev in the late 1970s, the Indian pace attack has had a healthy look. But never has it been more potent as it is now. There are experienced pacers around and an equal number of promising bowlers in the queue.

The five pacemen touring England constitute the leading quintet right now. Which means there is no place for the likes of Ashish Nehra, Irfan Pathan and RP Singh who were certainties not too long ago.

Abhimanyu Mithun, probably the best of the younger prospects, has to bide his time. Which raises the question ' whatever happened to the likes of VRV Singh, Pankaj Singh, Jaidev Unadkat, Dhawal Kulkarni and Lakshmipathi Balaji?

Well, some of them have fallen away while others it would appear are further back. Kapil was an inspiration to upcoming bowlers who learnt that one could take wickets by hurling them down at 120 to 140 kph as also by giving the ball a healthy tweak which was Indian cricket's traditional strength.

Kapil retired in 1994 but his legacy was a long line of first rate opening bowlers. After Kapil's retirement, the duo of Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad in the 1990s was the finest pace attack since the legendary days of Mohd Nissar and Amar Singh.

These days of course the Indian fast bowling line-up frequently constitutes a trio with just one spinner as a back-up. Who would have thought of such a scenario during the days when the bowling was opened by the likes of Jaisimha, Durrani, Pataudi, Subramanyam, Kunderan, Wadekar and Gavaskar?

What a metamorphosis! We now have half a dozen deserving candidates fighting for three places in the XI. And in home conditions most of the time there are just two places open for opening bowlers. Bowlers who were match-winners just a few years ago are now forgotten men as newer and younger bowlers are fast making their mark.

Irfan Pathan made an interesting observation a couple of years ago when he pointed out that Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma have raised the bar thereby throwing a challenge to other contenders to lift their game.

As a result, he hoped that at some point of time other pacemen would reach that higher level and eventually the team was bound to benefit. Not too long ago it was Irfan who was the spearhead of the attack good enough to equal John Briggs' 116-year-old record by taking 21 wickets in a two-match series in Zimbabwe and become only the second Indian bowler to take a Test hat-trick.

Just as he was shaping well as the all-rounder that Indian cricket had looked for since the exit of Manoj Prabhakar in 1996, Greg Chappell came along and interfered with his career, promoting him up the order. This was quite unnecessary as Pathan was developing along the lines of Karsan Ghavri. The result was that Pathan's bowling fell off and he lost his place in the side. This was a pity.