India speeding into the fast lane

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NEW DELHI, June 12 (AFP): India has always been considered cricket's land of slow bowlers, men with supple wrists dedicated to the beguiling and mysterious art of spin.
But there's a change in the air and it's coming at express pace as more and more youngsters are turning to fast bowling to make their names.
Recent years have witnessed a pace boom in India, with Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan, Rudra Pratap Singh, Vikram Rajvir Singh, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra and Laxmipathy Balaji all playing key roles.
Indian fast bowling coaches believe the number is bound to increase with each year.
"We have 8-10 fast bowlers who can fight for four places in the Indian side, which was not the case a couple of years ago," T A Sekhar, a coach at Australian speed bowling legend Dennis Lillee's MRF pace academy in Chennai, told AFP.
Time was when India relied on spinners to win matches at home and away, with the famous quartet of Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Bishan Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas Venkataraghavan calling the shots in the 1960s and 70s.
Those were the days when an India captain threw the new ball to his opening bowlers only to take the shine off it so that he could press his match-winning spinners into the attack.
The emergence of Kapil Dev changed it all in the late 1970s as he proved that India were capable of producing quality pacemen. He was a trend-setter in that he inspired many youngsters to take to fast bowling.
Kapil quit international cricket in 1994 with a Test record of 434 wickets and was regarded as one of the greatest all-rounders in history.
He also bagged 253 one-day wickets, as well as scoring 5,248 Test runs and 3,783 runs in the shorter version of the game.
The fast bowling trend continued even after Kapil quit as Manoj Prabhakar, Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad all served India with distinction in the 1990s before the latest crop of fast bowlers took over.
The phenomenon is nothing short of a surprise because unhelpful Indian conditions have always discouraged pacemen who have to struggle on low, slow pitches.