Five promising Indian fast bowlers from last decade who never reached their potential

‘Taking 20 wickets will win you Test matches’ is a very old adage in cricket that holds true to this day, and that’s where Indian cricket has been lacking pretty much throughout its cricketing history. There was a brief period in the early to mid 2000s where India managed to find Test match success in hostile places like Australia and England. But that was more to do with the ability of their spinners – Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh – as opposed to possessing a quality pace bowling attack.To be fair, Zaheer Khan has done a marvelous job in spearheading the fast bowling attack over the last decade and has played an instrumental role in many of India’s recent overseas victories. The problem, though, is that there has simply been no able support to the left-armer for a sustained period of time. Infuriatingly, it’s not as if Indian cricket has not been able to produce fast bowlers of the requisite international quality. There have been a number of fast bowlers who have shown early promise and done well in their first 12-24 months of international cricket. But, mysteriously, they all seem to lose their way after showing flashes of brilliance and eventually fall by the wayside.Here are 5 promising Indian fast bowlers from the last decade who never reached their potential: 

#5 Lakshmipathy Balaji

Lakshmipathy Balaji, it would be fair to say, had a very slow start to his international career. He had a forgettable ODI debut as he was smashed for 0/44 in just 4 overs against West Indies in 2002 and didn’t do much better in his first two Tests, either: with match figures of 1 for 105 and 0/78 against New Zealand in Ahmedabad and Mohali respectively. But the selectors retained their faith in Balaji for the tour of Pakistan in 2004, and he rewarded them by playing a crucial role in India’s historic Test series victory, taking a respectable 12 wickets from 3 Tests at a strike-rate of 53.

Just when Balaji was starting to feel a part of the India set-up, he suffered a stress fracture in 2005, which ruled him out of competitive cricket for almost 3 years. He had undergone numerous back surgeries in that period and was forced to remodel his bowling action in order to prevent the recurrence of further back problems. His comeback tournament was the inaugural season of the IPL, where his 11 wickets for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) included a hat-trick. He, then, forced his way back into the Indian team for an ODI series in Sri Lanka in 2009, remarkably just a few months after coming back from a lengthy lay-off, and was also included in the Indian squad for the Test tour of New Zealand shortly after, although he didn’t feature in any of the Tests.

Balaji, 32, might never be able to reach the heights he did during the 2004 Pakistan tour, but that is more due to his multitude of injuries, which has taken the bite away from his bowling.