Rarely will we observe a bowler sending the batsman’s stumps flying, or cause him any substantial damage. The Indian fast bowling today is one of the deadliest bowling attacks among all the nations. With Bumrah, Shami, Umesh Yadav leading the bowling attack, and with bowlers like Siraj, Natarajan, and Saini sitting on the bench waiting for their chance, they have become a batsman’s nightmare. With the advancement of the Indian Premier League, India currently brags about an assortment of quick bowlers who can scare the batsmen. This wasn’t always the case for India. For a long time, India was ridiculed for having masterpieces like Kapil Dev and Srinath in the past, and not being able to generate more quick bowlers like them in the middle years.
However, some bowlers performed well enough to earn their name and place in the history of Indian cricket. One of them was RP Singh. He was a deadly bowler especially because he bowled with his left-arm and made the ball swing both ways. In the 58 ODI matches he played for India, he took 69 wickets with an average of 34, which is appreciable. Zaheer Khan is another name that comes to mind when we talk about Indian fast bowling. He took swing bowling to the next level. He became the second most successful test cricket bowler after Kapil Dev and was also known for his ability to move the ball inside as well as outside at pace. He played as many as 92 test matches and 200 ODI matches for India and took more than 500 wickets combined.
The next young promising swing bowler that made his name is Bhuvneshwar Kumar. With a sublime bowling action and also with the ability to swing the ball both ways, Bhuvi will always be known for his scary delivery against Mohammed Hafeez. It was his debut T20 match and he sent Hafeez’s stumps flying on the very first ball. He finished the innings with a classy 3/9 in 4 overs which is a dream debut for any youngster. He later picked up the name of Swing King and even today, he is feared by every opening batsman. He may get chances in the future to surpass Zaheer Khan in all the stats, but as of now, Zaheer still dominates the charts, and hence, he can be called the most destructive bowler in his time.
