In an early conversation between India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir and Adrian Le Roux, the strength and conditioning coach, it is reliably learned, the latter observed that India’s fast bowlers don’t bowl enough in the nets. Or run.
There was a time when fast bowlers just turned up and bowled in the nets, or clocked several laps around the ground, rather than spend hours in the gym. Andy Roberts, the godfather of West Indies fast bowling phalanx, had once told this masthead: “The reason fast bowlers of this era are getting injured more frequently is because they don’t bowl in the nets as much as we did. We never did gym work, but just hit the nets and bowled with as much intensity as we did during an actual game. Most of their fitness came from bowling and the running sessions.”
And just three Tests into the series against England, India’s fast bowling machinery began to break and creak. Akash Deep sustained a niggle and was ruled out of the Old Trafford game; all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy injured his knee; Arshdeep Singh’s tour was over when he picked up an impact injury bowling in the nets before a possible debut in Manchester.
India’s Nitish Kumar Reddy bowls during day one of the Third Rothesay Men’s Test at Lord’s, London, Thursday July 10, 2025. (Bradley Collyer/PA via AP)
The reality for fast bowlers is that they will spend an infinite amount of time suffering, or recovering from, injury during their playing days. But one too many could wreck careers and break teams. Le Roux and Gambhir might devise a revised conditioning and grooming chart, stress on putting in more overs in the nets, the board could insist on coaches at the academies and grassroots to emphasise on bowling and sprinting, apart from gym-work. But changes wouldn’t bear instant fruits, which means India is wading through a fast-bowling crisis. Not yet full-blown, but with potential to explode.
Such whispers might seem exaggerated after Mohammed Siraj has produced a marathon solo act to help square a series in England. Yet, Siraj is the metaphor of all that is laudable and lamentable with India’s fast-bowling stocks. Only Siraj endured the rigours of all five Tests. He bowled nearly twice as many as most of his colleagues, and bagged only four fewer wickets than Prasidh Krishna and Akash Deep combined. Workload distribution among fast bowlers in the last two years has been disturbingly inequitable. Since India’s tour of South Africa in 2023-24, Siraj has played 20 Tests and hurled 3144 balls. Jasprit Bumrah has featured in 18 Tests and bowled 3080 balls in this format alone. The next highest is Akash Deep’s 1536. The recurring injuries to Mohammed Shami, whose last Test was the WTC final against Australia in 2023, has overburdened Bumrah and Siraj even more.
Uninspiring new faces
New faces were auditioned—three of India’s last six debutants have been outright pacers—but none had eased the labour on the twin pillars. All three—Akash Deep, Harshit Rana and Anshul Kamboj— capture the diverse insufficiencies of India’s fast bowling. Akash Deep is highly skilled, has dexterous wrists and pace when fully fit, but his intensity faltered after the match-winning concert at Edgbaston. At Lord’s, whether he was carrying an injury or not is uncertain, he was a shadow the breeze that blew over Birmingham. After a niggle he returned for the decider at Oval, but his incision and precision faltered. Fast bowling empires are not built on fragile frames.
India’s Anshul Kamboj bowls a delivery during the second day of the fourth cricket test match between England and India at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
The team management summoned Kamboj, after impressing the selectors on the domestic circuit and A tours, and handed out the debut cap. But he looked both out-of-pace and out-of-depth. He barely nudged 130 kph, hardly swung the ball and exuded little life or spark. His inadequacies were a damning verdict on India’s fast-bowling stable. “Not many in domestic cricket could touch even 135 kph, the minimum you need in Test cricket,” a worried support staff member said. Those could be counted on one palm of your hand. Avesh Khan, Kuldeep Sen, Arshdeep, Harshit Rana, Khaleel Ahmed… the list stops. None seem primed and ready to meet the demand of Test cricket.
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In contrast, at the stroke of this decade, India had a fleet of deluxe seamers-on-the-call. The untiring Umesh Yadav was reduced to guest roles when one of Ishant Sharma, Shami and Bumrah was injured or needed a succour. Bhuveshwar Kumar was considered redundant, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur and Siraj were on the waiting list. A deep reservoir of pace bowlers is always the aspiration of any cricket squad. And, transition was without friction.
Suddenly, there is an acute shortage, comparable to the late 90s, of seamers without pace and verve. India were one Javagal Srinath injury away from cajoling Sourav Ganguly to share the new ball with whoever was available on day. The chartbusters in domestic cricket are largely spinners of the left-arm orthodox variant. The seamers in the top 10 are most military medium pacers. Like Auqib Nabi of Jammu and Kashmir. Consequently, instincts, fleeting impressions, and gut-feeling instigate selectors to fast-track raw ones in the hope that they would seamlessly blend to international cricket.
Expediting Harshit Rana before he was ripe embodies the selectors’ helplessness. The Delhi seamer had featured in less than 10 games when hurried into debuting in Perth, in a series opener no less. He produced fire and bark on debut, but soon fizzled out, betraying the rough edges that need smoothening in domestic cricket. Contrastingly, Siraj had six seasons of domestic toil on his ledger when he debuted in Melbourne, 2020. Akash Deep was a Bengal regular when he earned the India nod. Thrown into the deep end prematurely, he combusted.
The rare seamers endowed with pace, like Umran Malik and Mayank Yadav, parachuted to fame through IPL, are unaccustomed to red-ball rigours. Malik, with just 12 first-class games to his name, last turned up in a Ranji Trophy game in February 2024. Mayank’s lone appearance came in 2022. That India’s is an ageing group aggravates the deficiency. Shami is 34, Bumrah turns 32 and would be a casualty of workload juggle; Siraj is 31. Prasidh and Akash Deep, at 28 and 29, are not too young either. In short, they have only one dependable quick, Siraj. And it wouldn’t be long before his body too begins to rebel, if he does not get the timely breaks.
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Worryingly, the spin department too is not tumbling over with riches. The left-arm spin is thriving, as they had been through decades, but there is hardly an off-spinner to challenge Washington Sundar or a wrist-spinner to keep Kuldeep Yadav on the toes. A long home season would mask the cracks—India next play Tests outside Asia in November 2026, against New Zealand—but there are enough concerns, both immediate and long term, to keep Gambhir and Co occupied and worried in the coming months.
Indian pacers’ workload since December 26, 2023 (balls bowled in Tests)
