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Ever since Kapil Dev dished out furious fast bowling against Pakistan in his debut series in 1978 and then settled down to become an iconic figure in the Indian team, it signaled the beginning of the end of domination of Spin in Indian cricket. Inspired by Kapil’s bowling action and his glorious deeds on the field, several youth in the late eighties and early nineties, started to take him as his idol and suddenly there was a buzz of fast bowlers in the domestic circuit and each team had no less than two good fast bowlers.
However not all of them fulfilled the promise they showed in the domestic circuit at the international level and for some of them the careers stuttered to an end after several outings in the international scene. For most of these fast bowlers injury was the chief culprit in denying them the opportunity of achieving the glory at the exalted stage. For some of them simple loss in concentration or a desire to concentrate on swing instead of pace might have fully spoiled the rhythm. Given below is a list of seven fast bowlers who donned the India colors and showed a lot of promise but faded away into the oblivion.
1) Chetan Sharma: He made his debut against Pakistan in 1984 and was hailed as the new Haryana Hurricane as comparisons began between him and Kapil dev, his illustrious teammate. He bowled fast and started gaining reputation as a strike bowler with his performances in the away series in England and Sri Lanka in 1986.Several pundits started analyzing how a short man like him generated so much of pace and concluded that he used his shoulder strength to great effect in generating speed. However he was quite expensive in the one-dayers and in the final of Sharjah Cup in 1988,he gave a last ball six to Pakistan’s Miandad with which Pakistan won and this proved very costly in the career of this budding fast bowler as he was sidelined for many years after that. He came back in 1992-93 away series against South Africa but failed to make any impact against a rampaging set of batsmen in Kepler Wessels, Pieter Kirsten and Darryl Cullinan. He slowly faded away after taking some 60 plus wickets in Tests.
2) Raju Kulkarni: This fast bowler from Bombay won the hearts of several visiting batsmen like Viv Richards, Mike Gatting etc. He was genuinely quick and looked set to form a nice combination with Chetan Sharma. However he did not last more than one season after picking three wickets against Sri Lanka in 1986.For some reason India lost a promising fast bowler as he suffered from injuries to his back.
3) Vivek Razdan: This Delhi born fast bowler made his debut against Pakistan in 1989 along with Sachin. With his cartwheeling bowling action he looked very much like Dennis Lillie and had good pace, as he prized out five scalps in his first outing. However injury forced him to sit out after that debut series and surprisingly never came back and slowly faded away after playing for Tamil Nadu in the domestic circuit.
4) Salil Ankola: This Maharashtra fast bowler was probably the most expected one to succeed. He made his debut along with Sachin in Pakistan in 1989.After some indifferent performances in spite of showing lot of promise; he was dropped as he suffered a toe injury. He was very quick and his bowling action resembled Jeff Thomson and along with Vivek Razdan, he was supposed to form the fast bowling pair for India. He again came back in the 1997 away series against South Africa, showed a lot of promise as he bowled his heart out but failed to keep his place. He went on to become a good television actor.
5) Subroto Bannerjee: He was a good swing bowler and a thinking bowler in the mould of Manoj Prabhakar. He made his Debut in 1991 against Australia and bowled exceptionally well against the Aussies to take three wickets on his debut. He formed the famous quartet of fast bowlers along with Kapil, Prabhakar, and Srinath in that famous tie against West Indies in a WSC match in 1991-92, as they skittled out the Windies for 126. After the series he was never called for the national team and slowly faded away after playing for Bengal.
6) Atul Wassan: This fast bowler from Delhi created a sensation with his pace when he made his debut in 1990 series against England and was under the tutelage of Alec Bedser for honing his skills but after that he had an injured toe and was never able to regain proper physical fitness. He was a very promising bowler whose exploits could not be seen by the cricket fans because of his injury. He is very precise and incisive in his present role as a television commentator.
7) Abey Kuruvilla: This gangling fast bowler from Mumbai was supposed to be the replacement for the legendary all rounder Kapil Dev in the bowling department. He did exceptionally well in his debut series against the Windies in 1998 with his “ Curtly Ambrose” like bowling action and was a very effective bowler in the series thereafter. He was not quick but accurate and therefore was the last version of Ambrose before retirement. With the resurgence of Srinath and Prasad as the best fast bowling pair that India had ever produced and due to the team composition of only two quick bowlers, he lost his place. He could never regain his place as he lost his pace with advancing years.
Besides these there were fast bowlers like Sanjeev Sharma, Dodda Ganesh, David Johnson, Iqbal Siddique, Debashish Mohanty etc who were supposed to become premier fast bowlers for India but alas all these riches came all at a time and the team could not afford to have more than two fast bowlers in a match! So inspite of showing promise not many of them could make the grade and it turned out to be the survival of the fittest and on this count Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad, Ashish Nehra stole the limelight. In this context had there been the twenty-twenty format of now, in those days, we could have seen more thrills and skills from these bowlers.
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