krkode
State Captain
This is a question that I've wondered about and would like to hear other peoples' thoughts on. I'm very stats-oriented and whenever someone says, "oh, he was a good bowler" or "he was a great batsman," I immediately search the player's profile and see for myself. And although it's true as people say numbers don't tell the whole story, these numbers mean something to me and I'm sure even if they don't tell the whole story, they tell a good chunk of it.
So that got me to thinking about bowlers in history: virtually every country has had one or two, maybe more bowlers who have been absolute stat legends. Generally, my threshold for what I consider an amazing bowler is a bowling average of 25 or below and every (decent) test-playing nation has had a few greats who have met this criteria. Except India.
Take a list of the greatest Indian bowlers: Kumble, Srinath, Harbhajan, Kapil Dev, Prasanna, Bedi, Chandrashekar - I believe the lowest bowling average among this group is 28. Kumble, who is arguably the greatest, averages 29.5.
Then I asked myself, why is this so? It's not that India is a bad team - we've had a fair share of glories and have almost consistently been in the top 4-5 teams in the world if not better.
Maybe it's because we play most of our matches in the subcontinent where bowling is generally tougher? But then there are other subcontinental players who are far and away detached from the records listed above - men like Wasim, Waqar, Imran, Akhtar and Muralitharan all average in the low 20s, similar to the greats from non-subcontinental teams.
Maybe it's because we're actually just poor bowlers and our batsmen have made up for that defect? Maybe it's genes and diet and Indians are just not big, strong and fast the way Australians and West Indians are? Why don't India have any great bowlers in the numerical sense like Akram (23), McGrath (21), Ambrose (21), Donald (23), etc. Or am I being too harsh in my criteria of what constitutes a great bowler?
So that got me to thinking about bowlers in history: virtually every country has had one or two, maybe more bowlers who have been absolute stat legends. Generally, my threshold for what I consider an amazing bowler is a bowling average of 25 or below and every (decent) test-playing nation has had a few greats who have met this criteria. Except India.
Take a list of the greatest Indian bowlers: Kumble, Srinath, Harbhajan, Kapil Dev, Prasanna, Bedi, Chandrashekar - I believe the lowest bowling average among this group is 28. Kumble, who is arguably the greatest, averages 29.5.
Then I asked myself, why is this so? It's not that India is a bad team - we've had a fair share of glories and have almost consistently been in the top 4-5 teams in the world if not better.
Maybe it's because we play most of our matches in the subcontinent where bowling is generally tougher? But then there are other subcontinental players who are far and away detached from the records listed above - men like Wasim, Waqar, Imran, Akhtar and Muralitharan all average in the low 20s, similar to the greats from non-subcontinental teams.
Maybe it's because we're actually just poor bowlers and our batsmen have made up for that defect? Maybe it's genes and diet and Indians are just not big, strong and fast the way Australians and West Indians are? Why don't India have any great bowlers in the numerical sense like Akram (23), McGrath (21), Ambrose (21), Donald (23), etc. Or am I being too harsh in my criteria of what constitutes a great bowler?