The wizard of wobble
Praveen Kumar responded to Zaheer Khan’s absence in the Lord’s Test with a determined display of swing bowling that ended with a five-wicket haul and his name on the hallowed honour’s board
Tariq Engineer
25-Feb-2013
Praveen Kumar responded to Zaheer Khan’s absence in the Lord’s Test with a determined display of swing bowling that ended with a five-wicket haul and his name on the hallowed honour’s board. Writing in the Guardian, Rob Bagchi praises the latest “wizard of wobble”.
I thought we had seen the last of the breed when Mohammad Asif was banned, so Kumar's emergence has been a welcome fillip to the trade of Tom Cartwright, Geoff Arnold and Bob Massie, the ultimate one-hit wonder. Good days are promised as well as the bad that are part of the job description for such a precarious occupation. Fortunately for him, Trent Bridge is the ideal stage for an encore.
In the Indian Express Sandeep Dwivedi makes the radical suggestion that India should field an all-pace attack in the second Test. He suggests that in the event of Zaheer Khan being unavailable, both Munaf Patel and Sreesanth should be picked, with Harbhajan Singh making way.
If India are ever to go with a four-pronged pace attack on this tour, it has to be at Trent Bridge. The list of leading wicket-takers at this venue is overwhelmingly dominated by fast bowlers — of the top-20 wicket-takers, 17 have been pacers and three leg-spinners. Over here, finger spinners find it tough to make an impression. In the first Test of the England-Pakistan series in 2010 — the last longer-version international game played here — the pacers played havoc. Of the 37 wickets that fell, 33 went to the pacers and there were two run-outs. England offie Graeme Swann had perhaps the easiest game of his career, as he bowled just 2 overs.
Tariq Engineer is a former senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo