This Indian pace attack is like that of erstwhile West Indies, says Sandhu

 

 

 

STAR seamer Balwinder Singh Sandhu, mostly known for his inswinger that disturbed the stumps of West Indian great Gordon Greenidge in India’s maiden World Cup triumph at Lord’s in 1983, equated the present Indian pace attack to that of the West Indies of yesteryears. During India’s World Cup triumph in England, India played with four fast bowlers. The Kapil Dev-led squad had Sandhu, Roger Binny and Madan Lal but Sandhu felt that except for Kapil, the other three were more of seamers than pacers. “Out of the four of us, only Kapil had some good pace while the rest of us were more of seamers. We had that skill of seaming the ball both ways but the present set of Indian bowlers including Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma and your own Umesh Yadav are quick bowlers. They are as good as the old West Indian attack. Shami is a very genuine fast bowler. Umesh has quick outswinger, Bhuvi makes the ball move at good pace and then there is a very fast and accurate Bumrah. But one thing is for sure that the SG balls have helped them a lot.

 

This balls tends to reverse swing after getting old. When we used to play, this concept was not there and after ten overs or so, it used to be a batsman’s game,” said Sandhu while interacting with media during a Meet The Press organised by Bankers’ Sports Council, Nagpur on Sunday afternoon. The former seamer welcomed BCCI’s decision to appoint former India player Rahul Dravid as coach of the senior India side. “It is a good move. It will be good for India and also for Rahul as he is coming from being the coach at Under-19 and India A levels. He knows most of the players graduating to the senior side and they also know the way of functioning of the coach,” Sandhu said. Indian skipper Virat Kohli has announced to step down as the leader in white-ball format and that goes well with Sandhu. “Split captaincy is a good option. It will help the players to relax a bit.

 

Leading the side in all the three formats in really taxing. And since Kohli has himself declared to step down, there will be no problem. Today’s players are very professional, they want to give their best and a change in leadership will hardly affect their performance,” Sandhu asserted. Sandhu was of the view that nothing can be predicted in Twenty20 format. “The team that has a better day will win (the Twenty20 World Cup). One cannot predict anything in this format. In Tests, which is real cricket, one can say that this team is better placed or looks good but in T20 anything is possible. A good ball in Test would fetch you a wicket but the same ball...and the bowler just prays that it does not go for a six.” On his delivery that shook the stumps of Greenidge in the final, Sandhu said, “It was the stage that made the ball great. If I had bowled that ball in Duleep or Ranji trophy, nobody would have talked about it. But in a way, I had sorted out how to get him out. I bowled on two occasions before that famous final.

 

Greenidge could not read my inswingers bowled from close to stumps. I cleaned him up in a Test in West Indies and then in the league stage of the World Cup,” recalled Sandhu as if he bowled that ball just yesterday. Sandhu also played an important role in the making of 83, a Ranveer Singh starrer movie, by training the stars. “There were many actors who worked hard but Ranveer was the most dedicated one. He wanted to be perfect. He even stayed with Kapil for about a week at his place to learn mannerism of the then Indian skipper. The film is releasing on Christmas Day this year,” he informed. During the event, BSC President Ramesh Thakur, Secretary Praful Nandedkar, former Vidarbha and Railways Ranji Trophy player Balwinder, Sharad Padhye, CP Karkar, Rajesh Joshi, Sunny Dudani, Razzaq Shaikh and others were prominently present.