Express pace doesn’t work in India: Bond

By Sunit Kaul

New Delhi

Oct. 8: Bowling fast has perennially been a daunting prospect for touring sides who are unfamiliar with subcontinental shirtfronts. Lack of carry and movement off the pitch can frustrate the best of the pacers and and whatever bounce there is, is usually variable enough to make life tough for an inexperienced wicketkeeper.

Australia, despite their much-vaunted 2004 series win here, are still ill at ease on these tracks — their performance in the warm-up game a case in point.

So how do fast bowlers, foreign to the conditions here, adapt? Former Kiwi speedster Shane Bond, who’s bowling more in India than New Zealand now, reckons that bowling at 90-plus mph will get you nowhere, but bowling reverse will. "Express pace doesn’t work here, nor does predictable bowling. What you need to do is vary the speed of your deliveries so that you disrupt the batsman’s bat-speed.

"It can be very hard to dislodge a batsman once he’s got comfortable with you pace.

"Mixing up your deliveries will help and also the fielding team has to work on the ball so that you can get reverse swing going after a while. That’s, in fact, the only way to make a batsman struggle," he says.

Bond, now part of the ICL, feels that well-directed bouncers can get more wickets in India than elsewhere.

"In New Zealand and Australia, the batsman knows at what height the bouncer will come, so he can get in line to play the hook or a pull. Here, because of the variable bounce, the batsman is in two minds whether to go forward or back," he adds.

"You have to really bend your back to get a chest-high bouncer. But it can get you a lot of wickets."

The focal point of Australia’s win four years back was to set relatively defensive fields so that the batsman had to work extra hard to keep the scoreboard ticking. "It’s actually a very aggressive technique, because you are cutting down the boundaries.

"As a fast bowler you have to keep your captain in the loop about how you want to manipulate the field.

"A short point to Sachin Tendulkar can be very productive while with Ganguly you just have to pack the off side field," he adds.

Bond feels Lee should only be bowled in short bursts, while Stuart Clark and Mitchell Johnson should shoulder more responsibility.