Tall order

Ajay Naidu

Centurion, January 15

Sunil Gavaskar, who scored 20 hundreds against the great West Indian bowlers in the 1970s-1980s, knows a thing or two about preparation for playing fast bowling.

As India’s batsmen, with the exception of Virat Kohli, again belied hopes today, Gavaskar pointed out a major lapse on part of the Indian think-tank in terms of preparation. He did not refer to the lack of tour games before the Tests or enough time back home to prepare. All this is well known. Instead, he talked about the ‘right’ kind of preparation.

“The Indian batsmen’s preparation to play fast bowlers in South Africa mainly revolves around playing the Indian pace attack of Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and a few others. However, that is just not good enough,” opined Gavaskar.

Why? “When you come to South Africa or for that matter Australia, the Indians are up against bowlers who are not only bowling at 140kmph-plus, but most of them are also fairly tall, which means the ball is also coming from a certain height,” he explained. “That can be pretty awkward to deal with on a fast and bouncy track. It is not just the bowlers who are express quick but even those bowlers who bowl at around 130kmph, if they are fairly tall, it adds to the batsman’s discomfort.”

He has a point. For instance, the 6ft-5in tall Morne Morkel bowled at an average speed of 138kmph, the quickest ball being 143kmph. Yet, judging from the way the batsmen reacted to him, he seemed much quicker.

“If a bowler is tall, then even his 130kmph delivery becomes 140kmph-plus… Add to that the height at which he delivers the ball, it can get very difficult,” he said. On the evidence of India’s showing thus far in the series, it certainly has been pretty difficult!