As we all know for fast bowlers, bowling on sub-continent pitches is very different to bowling on a green top in England or a fast, bouncy track in Australia. The pitches found on the sub-continents vary from each country but still have many similarities, these include dry, dusty pitches which are paradise for spinners, and the rough outfield, helps to roughen up the ball for reverse swing. Fast bowling on these pitches requires skill and patience, which is the reason only few South Asians fast bowlers have been successful wicket-takers. With the amount of skill and sheer hard work done by these fast bowlers I was inspired to write an article about the best of the bunch.

Imran Khan
I will start of with the greatest Pakistani cricketer of them all, Imran Khan. Few would imagine that his bowling would as successful as it was later in his career. Imran started his career against England at Birmingham as a batsman who could bowl medium pacers. His debut was unimpressive and people said his wayward medium pacers were not good enough at Test level. He then transformed himself into a bowler of genuine pace when he went to Oxford University, where the responsibility of being captain improved his bowling as well as his batting.

Imran Khan became a more complete fast bowler when he signed up for Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. Under the guidance of John Snow and Mike Procter, Imran Khan’s bowling action was changed from an javelin thrower like action to more side on action. This side on action helped Imran to bowl out-swingers as well as his stock in-swinging deliveries. By the 1980’s Imran Khan learned the rare art of reverse Swing, with this art his is armoury he changed himself to one of the most deadly fast bowlers on Sub-continent pitches.

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Kapil Dev
Kapil Dev is the best seamer Indian has ever produced and is India’s best all-rounder. He played in the era with other 3 all-rounders, England’s Ian Botham, New Zealand’s Richard Hadlee and Pakistan’s Inspiration captain Imran Khan. Many people remember one innings when he hit 4 consecutive fours to save the follow-on and that incredible 175* against Zimbabwe in the World Cup of 1983. He also inspired India to world cup victory in the 1983 world cup. But this thread is neither about his batting nor his all-round abilities, it is about his bowling.

Kapil Dev was India’s main strike bowler for more than a decade, which is surprising for a pace bowler from India, as spinners were the main wicket takers. As a bowler Kapil was noted for his graceful side-on action, which generated potent out-swingers, later on in his career during the 80’s he added the in-swinger to his armoury, which was very effective against the tail-enders. In just five years of Test cricket Kapil Dev had 250 test wickets by the end of 1983. He would have had more than 434 Test career wickets to his name if it wasn’t for a knee injury he suffered 1984. After the knee surgery his bowling had declined because he had lost some of his illustrious jump at the crease. Kapil Dev still carried on bowling until 1994 when he broke Richard Hadlee’s record of most Test Wickets.

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Wasim Akram
Wasim Akram is considered by many people as the greatest left-arm fast bowler to have played cricket. Then Pakistani captain Javed Miandad brought him to the team straight from his club where he discovered Wasim. Imran Khan then mentored him into a genuine fast bowler at Test level. Wasim Akram is also one of the few bowlers who have taken two hat-tricks in his career in Test cricket. His feat is unique, as it was achieved in consecutive Test against Sri Lanka.

Wasim had all the skills of a fast bowler in his armoury as well as genuine pace, pinpoint control of line and length, traditional out-swing and in-swing and as reverse swing. What made Wasim such a great bowler on sub-continent pitches was that he focussed his attack on the stumps rather than finding the edge of the bat. With this successful formula "lbw b Wasim Akram" is the 2nd most common form of dismissal not involving a fielder, “b Muralitharan” being the first. He was also gifted with an excellent bouncer and a very effective yorker, which made him one of the most feared bowlers of his generation.

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Waqar Younis
Known as the "Burewala Bombshell" he was one of the greatest bowlers of his time. Imran Khan who spotted him playing in the “galli’s” of Pakistan brought him to the Pakistani team. Imran then mentored him on how to bowl reverse swing. He made his successful debut against India at the same time as Sachin Tendulkar, who he dismissed later in the match.

He was master of reverse swing and he had a deadly in-swinging yorker in his armoury, which terrorised many top batsmen. One most notable in-swinger by Waqar was when he bowled one to Brain Lara, another legend of the game, which left Lara on the floor and his leg stump flipped 6 feet away. Like Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis bowled at the stumps instead of bowling for edge of the bat. With this theory Waqar Younis achieved great success in getting wickets, especially bowling batsmen out cleaned bowled or by LBW, he also achieved the best strike rate of all bowler to take more than 200 wickets.

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I have left out some other notable fast bowlers such as Javagal Srinath and Chaminda Vaas in this thread, but I have written enough, it is now your turn to contribute. During my research about these great bowlers, I discovered that all of them had better bowling averages at home then away. This was a big surprise to me as I had thought bowling on pitches abroad, which assisted fast bowling, would be a lot easier then bowling on the bland sub-continent pitches. They could be many reasons for this but I can’t think of any of them.

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CC

Nice sig there Waseem.

Great thread here. My personal favorite is Akram. Akram to me was a deadly fast bowler who managed to bowl well on just any type of track. It always made great viewing when sachin faced Akram in test matched. may be because they respect each other so much. When Akram bowled to sachin, even the defenses looked great and you could see on their faces the respect they had for each other.

A great, thought-provoking post there Waseem. Snazzy work!

I'm a bit too young to have seen Dev and Khan at their best, to be honest. So it's interesting to read the information you have provided.

In fact, what I have seen of Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram is also pretty limited. Mike Atherton regarded them as the best new-ball pair he faced, and he faced everyone during the 90's; Donald and Pollock, McGrath and Gilllespie and Walsh and Ambrose. I'm not going to argue with Athers.

What I did see of Waqar and Wasim was that the bowled fast and could massively move the ball both ways in the air. They were also pretty useful with the old ball too, being masters of reverse swing. Their records speak for themselves, masses of wickets between them. Waqar's strike rate is phenomenal and possibly Wasim is the best left-armer the world has ever seen.

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Whatever your difficulties in mathematics, I can assure you mine are far greater!
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955