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Not Bharat Arun or Ravi Shastri, Cork credits Australia legend and ex-England coach for India's fast-bowling turnaround
While a lot of credit goes to former bowling Bharat Arun for triggering a remarkable turnaround in India's pace-bowling department, former England quick Dominic Cork has underlined an Australian legend's contribution.
Indian cricket's fast bowling depth today is remarkable. Gone are the days of medium pacers bowling at early 130s opening the bowling for India in Tests and ODIs. The duo of Virat Kohli, and Ravi Shastri ensured that Team India bragged about having a world-class fast-bowling line-up which could regularly pick up 20 wickets especially when playing overseas. And the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur have done so consistently and successfully.
While a lot of credit goes to former bowling Bharat Arun for triggering a remarkable turnaround in India's pace-bowling department, former England quick Dominic Cork has said that long before Arun, Australian legend Dennis Lillee and his MRF pace academy sowed the seeds of India's fast-bowling revolution.
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"India didn't have that much depth in pace bowling at that time. India has come along greatly in fast bowling. Dennis Lillee and the MRF began it all. Then Duncan Fletcher as a coach ensured that India had the firepower," Cork told The Hindu. "I have seen them in the IPL and then developing into fine bowlers, like Navdeep Saini. With spinners like Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja and all the pacers India could bowl any side out."
Cork weighed in on the noise surrounding England's Ashes debacle, saying that reports of the IPL and The Hundred are responsible for their poor show in England are rubbish. The reason behind England's underwhelming performance in the Ashes, as Cork puts it, is because their four-day set-up no longer boasts quality overseas players such as in the 1990s and 2000s.
"We will blame anything. We will blame the IPL, The Hundred. The reason is that we just took the eye off Test cricket. We don't have the quality we had back in the 1990s when we had top overseas players. We used to have Mohammed Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar, Michael Holding, Brian Lara and many others. They could bat all day. I was lucky to play in that generation," he said.
