Formidable Pace Battery Has Been The Cutting Edge Weapon For Team India's Meteoric Rise in Test Cricket 

Formidable Pace Battery Has Been The Cutting Edge Weapon For Team India's Meteoric” Rise in Test Cricket 

Indian cricket has traversed a tough journey and tested heavy waters since making its foray into the big league of Test Cricket, way back in 1932. The eight decades of the Asian powerhouse competing in top fight cricket has seen them transition from minnows to challengers to world beaters. The current Indian Test team under the aegis of Virat Kohli has been pretty consistent, stringing a spree of wins in bilateral series at home and pulling off some spectacular victories on overseas soil, thereby extending their hegemony at the very top in the most grinding form of the game. The sub continent giants for long were considered as Lions at home and Lambs Abroad. With the turn of the millennium Sourav Ganguly instilled a fearless attitude in the mindset and never say die attitude to take on the best in the world. While Indian cricket has been fortunate to have a plethora of batting maestros and quality spinners who were the architects of building a fortress on home conditions, the team lacked a potent pace battery to outgun their opponents on seam friendly tracks abroad. One would be a little harsh in terming the Indian fast bowling attack as below par as they had the likes of Kapil Dev, Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan were world class seamers in their own right. But it was always a case of one standout seamer and the rest being a touch above the mediocre class. For most of the 80s, Kapil Dev led the attack with distinction and had seam bowling partners in the form of Madal Lal and Roger Binny. In all honesty, they were seam all-rounder but not genuine seamers. Mercurial seamer Chetan Sharma produced some match winning spells but faded away into oblivion. In the 90s, Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad formed a pretty handy pace duo and stitched some memorable wins but lacked support from a third seamer. During that period, the Indians had the likes of Manoj Prabhakar, Ajit Agarkar and Debashish Mohanty who were highly successful in limited overs cricket but could not prove their pedigree in Test cricket. With the turn of the century, Zaheer Khan spearheaded the Indian pace attack but much like Srinath, 'Zak' lacked a quality partner at the other end. Irfan Pathan rose rapidly and then witnessed a downfall, from where he could never quite recuperate. They were sporadic performances of brilliance by RP Singh and S Sreesanth but they faded away rather quickly. The likes of Munaf Patel, Lakshmipathy Balaji and Ashish Nehra were either plagued by injuries or found it pretty tough to sustain the hard grind of Test cricket. In the last five odd seasons, there has been a major positive which has reaped massive dividends for the Indian Test team under the captaincy of Virat Kohli. India at last has got a potent pace batter which  has a formidable lineup of seamers. Each pacer is different in their own right but one more lethal than the other. Never before did India have such a repertoire of seamers who could bowl out the best of batting lineups. While Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami have been simply sensational when seaming conditions are there on offer, they have a tear away seamer in Umesh Yadav who has castled quite a few stumps with his menacing pace. The seasoned campaigner Ishant Sharma has been a handful on tracks which have offered good bounce and carry. However, the icing on the cake has come in the form of Jasprit Bumrah who has been a revelation of sorts with his spectacular rise in Tests. There is a healthy rivalry among seamers in the Indian dressing room and a constant  urge to do well collectively as a unit. Add to his attack Hardik Pandya ,who has shown signs the he very much belongs to the highest level as a containing seamer. There seems to be good talent in the pipeline, coming in the form of Navdeep Saini and Shivam Mavi  who if groomed and nurtured well could well serve India well for a long time. Indian cricket does still rely a lot on their traditional strengths of batting heavy lineups and quality spinner but they have certainly added a new cutting edge weapon in a formidable bowling unit. Test wins overseas are not a rarity anymore and Indians are taken as serious opponents whenever they set sail abroad.