5 Indian fast bowlers who faded away after showing great promise
India, as a cricketing nation, is more known for their batting exploits. When it comes to bowling, the spinners have always had the upper hand as compared to seamers.
This may well be attributed to the playing conditions in India with pitches conducive to spin bowling and hardly offering anything for the fast bowlers. As a result, there aren't many fast-bowling legends in Indian cricket.
Kapil Dev, Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan are the only names that stand out. However, with growing enthusiasm towards fast bowling and India looking to succeed more on foreign soils, their fast bowling stocks have seen a vast improvement in recent times.
With considerable improvements in domestic cricket structure, India has been constantly able to nurture bowling talents who have been able to make a mark in international cricket.
Unfortunately, along the way, India has lost a slew of fast bowlers to a variety of reasons. A lot of young prodigies couldn't live up to the mark and couldn't achieve what was expected of them.
Let's have a look at five such recent fast bowlers who looked very promising but couldn't play for very long owing to different reasons.
#5 RP Singh
RP Singh showed great promise in the 2004 Under-19 World Cup. Subsequently, the left-arm seamer was recognized by the selectors and handed an ODI debut against Zimbabwe in 2005.
His most impressive performance came against England in Lord's 2007 where he took a five-wicket haul in the hosts's second innings. He continued to impress with a string of good performances in the 2007 World T20. His most memorable performance came against Australia at the WACA in Perth. He took six wickets in the historic match that India won.
After that, RP Singh had a couple of good seasons at the IPL before injuries started hampering his career. Soon after, he lost the kind of swing and seam movement he could generate and was soon out of the reckoning.
He retired from all forms of cricket at the age of 32.