Okay, so, now we have won the 3rd one-day international against Pakistan, though lost the series by 2-1 but atleast able to get a boost-up ahead of upcoming India-England ODI series. Despite scoring mediocre 167, India able to stop Pakistan on 157, winning the match by 10 runs, beings-in the doubt of match-fixing, but well, we cannot prove that, but if its not true, then I must appreciate the weakest bowling department to fire at last, and which help them gain their places in the upcoming series. The fast bowlers and the spinners and Ravindra Jadeja were able to save their places. We got 2 good fast bowlers in Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Shami Ahmed, who bowled in perfect line-and-length. Lets see how far they can go with this performance. Ashwin also retained his position alongwith good-performing Jadeja. Though why did Rohit Sharma get another chance, I don’t know! Pujara comes in place for misfiring Sehwag, and that’s a good move. Lets wait for Rajkot on 11th January match. I want to see the matches which are been playing at Dhoni’s place Ranchi and in Dharamsala, probably the highest (altitude) cricket ground of world. But lets continue with some bowling records (ODI) to see.
Source: http://www.espncricinfo.com
1.Most Wickets in Career – We all know that who topped this place – the spin master Muralitharan, who has taken 534 wickets overall. The nearest contendor to him who is still active is No.8 Shahid Afridi, who has taken 348 wickets till now, and it doent seem that with is current form, he by any chance could reach that milestone. There are 4 Indian bowlers in the Top 20 list – 9th Anil Kumble (337), 11th Javagal Srinath (315), 14th Ajit Agarkar (288), and 15th Zaheer Khan (282) in which only Zaheer is currently active, as I don’t see Agarkar getting any chance to play international matches now.
2.Best Bowling Figures in an Innings – only 1 Indian bowler in the Top 20 list, guess who, the great Anil Kumble with his career best 6.1-2-12-6 vs. West Indies at Kolkata. No other Indian bowlers in the list, sad! Again a Srilankan (Chaminda Vaas) topping the chart.
3.Most Wickets in a series – there is no Indian bowler in the Top 20 list, sad affairs. In the list there are as many as 12 positions hold by the mighty Australians (3 by Glenn McGrath, also topping the chart), and there are 3 West Indian, 2 Srilankan, 2 Pakistani and 1 New Zealand bowler in the list.
4.Most Wickets in a Calender Year – Here, we got 2 Indian bowlers in top 20, both inactive – 4rth Anil Kumble (32 wickets in 1996), and 8th Ajit Agarkar (30 wickets in 1998). Saqlain Mushtaq from Pakistan tops the chart.
5.Best Career Bowling Average – No Indian bowler again in Top 20 list, the list topped by West Indian pacer Joel Garner, with an average of 18.84, and there are 5 active bowlers in the list.
6.Best Career Economy Rate – This top 20 list there is no bowler from either India or Sri Lanka, but every other country has atleast 1 entry. WI bowlers has 6 places, followed by Aus and Eng (5 each). Again Joel Garner tops the list with econ rate of 3.09.
7.Worst Career Bowling Average – Obviously on this list many part-timer names are bound to come, and you know what India has 3 entries – 5th Ajay Sharma, who has the 3rd best batting average in Indian domestic cricket scoring more than 10000 runs, played only 1 Test and banned for lifetime after finding guilty for match-fixing. 12th Ajay Jadeja and 15th Suresh Raina are the other two Indian bowlers in the list.
8.Worst Career Economy Rate – Now, this is again the negative list, and guess what an India topped it this time. No surprises there! Sridharan Shreesanth is at no.1 position with econ rate of 6.07, followed by 2 more Indian bowlers, at 15th Ishant Sharma (5.58) and at 17th Lakshmipathy Balaji (5.57). and all these bowlers are frontline pacers for India.
I don’t know what would be the future of Indian bowling, but I can only hope we get something out of the dust to call it our own.
