India bowling coach upbeat on fast bowling 'potential'

Sri Lanka has usually offered climes and conditions roughly familiar to India's cricketers.  On the face of it, this tour is their best chance to snap a four-year stretch in which they have not won a series overseas. Batsmen may have arrived on the island slavering at the idea of playing a foreign Test with the sun on their backs and a tawny surface underfoot.

But they have arrived at the Premadasa Stadium one day ahead of their tour-match here, and, oh dear, the sky is grey. Worse, the pitch is green. Not the washy subcontinent green, which unveils the brown beneath as soon as the first hour is done. This is proper, nausea-inducing, vomit-coloured stuff.

It is not a venue reputed for its seaming surfaces, so there is a chance the India batsmen find something to like about it, in the end. But on looks alone, it may set off warning bells in the dressing room. In Colombo, at least, Sri Lanka seem to be preparing seaming tracks in the belief that therein lies their best hope of taking 20 India wickets.

But if the India batsmen are worried, their young squadron of quicks are probably excited by the grass. Bowling coach Bharat Arun said his charges have the means to thrive on any surface. Ishant Sharma is the default leader of the seam attack, and with him he has the pace of Varun Aaron, the bustling intensity of Umesh Yadav, and the skill of Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

"There is great potential in this fast bowling unit," Arun said. "We have a couple of guys who can clock 145-plus on a consistent basis and also the fact that we have Ishant who is pretty experienced. He can extract extra bounce off the wicket and of late, Ishant has been extremely consistent. That's a very, very encouraging fact.

"Bhuvi has had a wonderful tour in Zimbabwe where he has rediscovered himself. He is moving the ball pretty well both ways. So we do have the variety. We have somebody who can move the ball and seam the ball, and someone who can extract that extra bounce, and a couple of bowlers who can clock 145-plus. That gives us enough variety to battle any conditions."

Bhuvneshwar's series in Zimbabwe featured a 4 for 33 in the second ODI in Harare, in which he drew the edge of two frontline batsmen with away-seaming deliveries. But it was the rejuvenation of another delivery that envenomed him, his coach said.

"There were no problems with Bhuvi as such, but the ball that he could bring it back in - he was having trouble with that," Arun said. "So I guess it was just a question of the release point. He worked pretty hard on that and I guess that made a huge difference - the fact that he could bring the ball back in like he used to earlier. That made him a lot more potent."

For Umesh and Aaron, both of whom have exciting pace, but also Test economy rates close to 4.5, Arun has not recommended a safe-but-sure philosophy.

"Something that I would definitely not want is sacrificing pace," he said. "It is a wrong concept sometimes that people who bowl fast are generally erratic. As you get more and more efficient in your action and your thought process, I think you can be fast and accurate like many of the other bowlers in the world have proved. The challenge for these two would be to not compromise on their speed but get a lot more accurate."

With India having repeatedly spoken of strapping five bowlers to their Test plough this series, hopes are likely to be high that the bowling unit will deliver 20 wickets. But it also means the tail will be expected to produce runs. "I guess if you look at any Test team that has dominated world cricket, they have always had five bowlers in it," Arun said. But I think if you could probably have a batting allrounder, that would be very, very beneficial for the side.

"But now we have three bowlers who can bat well. R Ashwin has two hundreds in Tests, so has Harbhajan Singh. And Bhuvi is more than a capable bat. Our lower order needs to live up to this challenge and contribute and I think the five-bowler concept is the best that you can look forward to."