Hello, and welcome to Express Sports podcast.

You're listening to Game Time with Mi Mihi Vasavada, Ahmid Kamat and Vinayaka Year with us as always.

Joining us today is Sandi g.

We are still not over the Test series that recently concluded in England and there were so many threads, so many talking points from that incredible series.

We just thought we'll give it one more short, one more episode and talk about a couple of things which will it has been debated quite a bit in the public sphere.

One of course, is about just Pied Bumra and him quote unquote picking and choosing when to play, where to play, and how much to play.

And the other based on an incredible piece that Sandhi Pier wrote on just the depth of Indian fast bowling.

It's something that you know, we've been talking about for such a long time.

India did at one point have incredible firepower when it came to pace us.

Suddenly the park use that it might not be the case or not might not be the rosy picture.

As we think it is.

So these two topics on our agenda today and uh, well I go alphabetically, I guess amid First of all, where do you stand on the old just play boomra issue on him being well?

As the argument goes selective on when to play, I think every athlete basically has to have that call, right.

An athlete has to decide when they want to play, when they want to skip, because otherwise, what's the difference between an athlete and a bonded labeler.

Right, So it's nobody's.

Saying that they should come and bowl on demand, day in, day out, whenever there is a test match.

In Sleep's copy, there's a very fascinating bid that we will I'm sure get into that.

You know, the fast bowlers of the West Indian phalanx of pace bowlers, they didn't do so much in the gym, so maybe that's why their bodies were more resilient to fast bowling.

Maybe that's what's changed.

But then I think it's very fast debate to have whether a cricketer or an athlete.

I think that entitlement comes in from fans like us looking at them and saying, CERI eam millions chaper at, why shouldn't he play when we want him to play.

He's representing us, So he's basically our employee, right, if our certain politicians can work eighteen hours and twenty hours a day.

Cricketer normn.

I think that's a very fascinating to build that way.

It's a great point about how the West Indian fast poolo is prepared back in the day and Sundy, of course we will talk about that, but I kind of play the Devil's advocated year.

I mean, it's a weird problem to have.

I think when you are a coach and the captain, and especially when you're going on a long series like the one in England right now, is this a good problem to have a or a bad problem?

If we were to classify problems in that way.

The Boomra issue especially, I.

Mean, if there was a choice between not playing Boomra and Boomra at least playing three Test massages, I would take Boomra playing at least three Test message for any too, all he needs is the three Test matches.

I mean, Boomra throughout this year, since he made his debut twenty eighteen, I mean most of the series has played all Test matches, whether you look at last tour of Australia or even before that, the twenty nineteen Tour of Australia.

The twenty twenty two tour of England.

He played every Test match because of his peculiar physical conditions, the kind of stress factors and injuries that he undergone, I mean, and should I mean, I think he has reached that stage when he can actually begin choose I mean, which idea he shouldn't be doing that also because in a long tour, if you know that you're for your best fastballer I mean one of the best possible of all time has a sort of a creaky body, I mean, you have to take the precaution and it's the ambition should be to preserve Boomera as much as we could.

I mean, if this helps us to, like say, Boomerah play till his thirty six thirty seven, it it's super like.

I mean, we don't want to burn out kind of a scenary with Boomera, whether it's physical or mental like I mean, so we should preserve him.

I mean that's the way we should be going in the future as well, like and give him rest, let him play like two Test matches in a three Test series.

So I mean, just as for his physical conditions, this three Test match thing was laid out even before he was speak because like ceation with doctors their National Cariker Academy in the doctors, the physios and trainers and coaches, so there was a consensus on that.

So I mean, even.

If imagine if India World two two and leading this were a decided also, I think he shouldn't have played that much when it's.

Like those Golden Goose kind of uh scenario, right or son Us Currew.

I think it comes down to that.

I mean again, I kind of feel that there has to be then clear cut communication at some level of what is the problem that he's facing and what is expected of him.

Maybe internally within the cricket circle or the cricket board it might be know it, but given that there is so much scrutiny, there could be a better job communicating the whole situation around Boombra, his health as well as his availability.

I mean, would communication then be factor venak.

I cannot believe that I'm actually saying this, but in this case, I think the BCCI and the team management were very clear from the word go right.

It's not something that we associated with them that the word transparency in the past, but even before the tour began, we were told that Boomra is not going to be there for all tests.

It's kind of important to divide the voices in this debate, right, the fans have been behind Boomera.

Weirdly enough, there is this online section of noise that has been around Boomra for a while.

Now.

You know, we plays IPL, it doesn't show up then for crucial matches, then he picks up injuries at don't wanted times.

Recently there has been this sort of noise around him.

So it's important to filter that out, right, I mean, that is completely none of Boomra's problems, none of India's problems, none of BCCs problems.

Right, That noise is going to be there anyway.

It's the sort of this former cricketers now joining into that debate that that I think is a bit bit of a problem in this scenario.

Snulkaaskar on his India Today interview.

I think it's also important to point out that Son went on this big grant of you know, I don't want work load to be part of India's dictionary, and you know you see siras doing it.

You know, these guys, the people on the borders, the Javans don't demand workload management.

Typical sort of old man rant that we come to associate with him unfortunately.

But later in the interview he goes on to clarify, Oh no, no, no, boomra is you know that's an injury issue, that's not a workload issue.

I just want to make sure that you know that's not so.

Are you even listening to yourself?

Is what I thought after listening to the whole interview.

Then there is some parttile, then there's more others, and then these are these voices that are ifan't Patan I think was one of the more saner recent voices that you know, India must think beyond mumrah things like that.

That's a little bit worrying to me.

I mean, why don't you guys understand what is going on?

Right?

You've played the sport.

First of all, If the workload management was not a problem in your time, that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be a problem now.

The amount of cricket they're playing is completely different from what it was whatever years ago, so that comes into play, comes into play, and this guy has not been picking and choosing tests all his career.

It's happening probably for the first time, Like Sandip mentioned, I was just looking at numbers.

In Australia, just this last tour, he bowled the most number of overs in Perth first innings, second most in Adelaide first innings, then second most in pretty much Brisbane both the innings, then both the innings of Melbourne he bowled the most number of overs.

Then in Sydney he broke down right.

It's almost like whenever he bowls, he bolds pretty much the most number of overs in an innings.

For India, you have to take it to consideration and not just the volume of overs he bowls.

Whenever India needs a wicket and he bowls like there are no easy overs that Boomra bowls.

Never in a Test match that there is okay, there's a lull, you know, nothing is happening.

Let's give Boomra two overs just for time pass.

They say every time Indian need a week it every time there's a new batter, every time there's a new ball take and he has to come in, he has to bowl those four or five quick overs of incisive precision and whatever.

And it's so many factors that people don't seem to consider when deciding okay, why is he deciding which test to play?

That has been the biggest sort of mystery for me in this whole debit.

Sorry, I went on a little bit too long, but I just want to get that over.

No.

I think it's a great point, but I again, I'll play the devil'sad.

Okay, I'll continue playing that.

The one thing I think where he and perhaps the team management missed the trick was releasing him for the fifth Test, right as the counter argument has gone that his presence in the dressing room itself could be kind of helpful for other bowlers, and this is not the first time it has happened.

I don't remember which series.

Was it the home series against New Zealand or I think it must be that.

That's also when he left the team early because he wasn't available to play that Test match.

I think it was the moon By Test.

You guys can correct me if I'm wrong.

Just that bit right.

The presence, Okay, I completely get it.

You're not fit enough to perhaps play the Test match, but your presence can be of big help to younger pacers, and India did have quite a few younger pacers in this tour, and as well as in the previous Test matches that we're referring to.

So Sirah should now be the mentor now.

I think.

Bowling.

I mean Bumra not being in the team is good for him.

But like I mean, the first three years of Bumra, Kerry never played at testing jam and he was deliberately not played at Test in India because I mean again Shastri and Bada knew the fragility of his action his body, so they cotton bowled him.

So like the first series I think he played was against England interest during the pandemic.

So three years were imployment.

That was a kind of a dictach that he wouldn't play a Test match India.

I mean not because he didn't want it, because a team management didn't want it.

So I mean the old thing is that Boomra is a special kind of a ball of who we need to protect them in imagine with an action, I mean bowlers with such weird actions, how many of them have actually played around will have long carriers like Lezid Malinga.

How many Test matches he played?

He played thirty Test matches, thirty two Test matches, two hundred wickets.

That was it.

Jeff Thompson a theatrical action.

He played how many sixty Test matches?

That's all, Like I mean ten twelve s he did sixty Test matches to two hundred wickets.

That was also.

We need to take all those things into account when we talk about boom Ray and preserving him for a particular series, particular test matches and basically preserve him like a like a treasure.

If we go back.

To what the point you made right at the start, right which Sigi mentioned in his story, which I think we should share the link of it in our show notes, I think it's changed how the bowlers are training as well.

And again I don't know if there is in scientific evidence to back this, but what you said about the West Indies player, I found that bit fascinating too, of how the West Indian players of the past train compared to how the past polos trained.

Right now, no so Mera.

I think because when I went on this tangent and he kind of broke down starts.

I also want to be the present Krishna to his mama Siraje, I guess in this start business though, I wanted to point out that you know Boomera basically in the last eight matches that he played across the two series Australia and in England.

He's kind of bold to seventy three overs out of India's and seven overs, which roughly comes up to what twenty four point seven percent, right, so he's almost one fourth of all the overs, even if he's missed two Test matches, four Test matches, whatever it is.

So, I mean, it's a lot of burden that we are putting on this one guy.

Obviously, Sandibez mentioned how he's like a very unique bowler in terms of his biomechanics, his bowling action and things like that.

But yeah, also in his piece he mentions this fascinating anecdote where you know, current Westernian legend mentioned how you know, back in the day, they used to hit the nets and they used to bowl with the same intensity that they would put in the actual overs when they were bowling, and there was barely any gym work, if there was any, so which kind of helped them stay.

Attuned to the rigors of bowling in a sense.

Right now, he lamented that you know, fast bowlers are maybe not doing too much running, not doing too much bowling actually and doing too much Jimmy, which is probably what his argument was, that it leads to a lot of breakdowns or injury concerns.

They not just the possiblism.

Andy Roods said that but for some Ran Khan a nation of Asian genetics, like Imran Khan was Makran.

They also never.

Used to work exhaustly in the gym, like remember, I mean he hardly months.

He was saying, like the first time he went to the gym, so I jim was when he was thirty thirty do something.

So they were all running like when that that was the way it was in the eighties and seventies.

I mean the training was not systematic, does not organize and you run, you ball in the nets, that was it.

So, I mean that was particular to that Meleeul.

So I don't think any bowler can survive just on boring in the nets and running laps around the ground.

Training has become scientific, so then naturally, I mean you have to spend a lot of time, and a lot of figids have actually benefited from a lot of gymberk For example, Pat comings bad Commins always talks about how jim work has helped him become a better battle and georsh Hasel would.

So maybe a bit of but what have I said?

And ballers need to put a lot of.

Hours in the nets, which one of the Indian support staff also lamented, like, I mean these days they're on ball that much in the nets and just kind of like conditions your muscle memory, which you know that wastballing is a very complicated action.

You're doing everything, You're doing what a sprinter does, You're doing what a long jumper does, You're doing what I mean.

Basically, it's a multi athletic process, like a very unnatural body positions you have like you run straight and then you turn side down, then you fling your arms, then you land.

So it's a very complicated athletic action, not a natural athletic action.

So by nature, fastball and can bring over a lot of energies.

The thing is that once you are right for mang age, you brought a lot of hovers you run that conditions your body to that workload.

That was what Andy Roberts was implying.

So Sally, WIT's almost like competing in the decatalon but all at the same time.

Yeah, like not like separate events.

Yeah, that is exactly what I remember one of those you know India's formal physical trainers like Rams and one Stallus.

He was a sprinter basically and then he got into conditioning fastballers because I mean not as the muscles and I mean muscles can be built up, but bonds developing there on good time.

That also we need to take into account and a lot of things genetics also.

I mean you see some of South Africa's fastballers like dail Stain hardly got injured.

There is a classic example of natural athlete.

I mean you also never went to the gym, but he hardly missed a Test match.

I mean the first Test match he missed was like he was fine for one game, that was it.

He played some eighty ninety Test matches at a stretch, which is great for a fast unbelievable for a fast bowler.

Never had to change his action, never had to correct his action.

I mean by the time he was thirty thirty only dropped a little bit of bass.

He's never anyway, never the quickest of fastballers.

But apart from that, he is a supreme athlete.

It's fantastic this example.

It reminds me of how javelin throwers also train not much of jim work, balancing them both and also a lot of the sport related exercises right throwing and flexibility and all those things, and put a lot of effort in jim and your flexibilities compromise to some level.

Great parallel a great example of how actually fast bowlers are kind of multi discipline athletes within themselves.

Me so, because you mentioned javelin throwers, this reminded me that there was this German javelin thrower called Andreas Hoffmann.

He's one of those rare ones who's you know.

Hit ninety he's crossed the ninety meter mark, but he's never actually won like a gold medal in the World championship for the Olympics.

Whereas the other two you know, have Roller and Wetter.

I've actually gone to see him train, and the amount of crazy things that you doing in the gym it seemed like mind blowing.

But then you look at the fact that he's actually never won a medal in a big tournament, and that is something that you were mentioning right now.

That you know a lot of guys like Niro.

Chopra, they don't really put too much maybe emphasis on weightlifting and things.

They do the basics, but they are more focused on other things like flexibility, not so much on building blocks of muscles and looking like and whatever hercules stereotype.

It's fascinating so many parallels between how these two set of athletes travelin throwers and fast bowlers especially have in common.

We have done you know, in depth stories about this in the past, but another link of how they train and how they keep their bodies fit as well.

We moved to the second part, which is in a way link because India is so heavily dependent on Boomera that we kind of are also have dragged ourselves into this fast bowling crisis of sorts.

And he wrote the in depth piece on this.

But before I come to you, when I just from what we saw in this series, I know everyone's really going gaga over what Krishna did or what Akash they did.

I mean, I'll be honest, they didn't really impress me that much.

If you put them on a flat track somewhere in India, they'll be hammered day in, day out.

At least conditions were better just intervention.

I mean, the tracks in England cannot be more flatorable.

The tracks in England are absolutely flatlan.

At least a ball doesn't have to be changed every and over.

I don't think so.

I mean in India we get better bawling nditions, actually some of them at least, and there is some rivers.

Yeah, yeah, an st Bol has precocious sea movement initially, No.

I honestly like I mean conditions that is also before were going to pay the depth.

I think just one more point in the Boomrah debate is that if the argument is that you should have played the final Test because the series was still open, in the Manchester Test, Boomra bowled a truckload of overs right thirty three over setting bold India onred and fifty seven overs.

It is the first time ever in his career that he has considered more than a hundred.

And there were three days break and you saw what happened with Stokes in between the fourth and fifth Test.

So like these factors people don't consider, right, It's just that that part still annoys me in the whole anyway.

Yeah, so the death part.

Did you say here that people are going gaga over presses and Kash, I actually don't.

Think they are.

I mean short term memory, I mean what happened in the Fifth Test has recertainly gotten some people excited exactly.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think the Fifth Test especially I think Akash.

I mean India basically played with three paces in that match and they had two spinners which they didn't use at all in that whole the result that was inspired by Siraj and a little bit by Press.

It is forgotten that India actually got their selections quite wrong and they won the match despite of the management and not because of it.

That needs to be pointed out.

And the fact that you know, India broke down Boomera in Australia and nearly could have broken down Siraj in England by just bowling them into the ground is another aspect that's probably not talked about enough.

When you're talking about players picking and choosing their workload, how workload should not be part of BCS Indian Crickets Dictionary and random exaggerated nonsense like that, you're not talking about what the management is doing, what the selectors are doing, what the coach is doing, which is I mean basically utilizing all the resources that you have and just grinding them to like not be sharp, like just becoming a blunt knife, right, So that is not being talked about enough anyway.

So that's also part of the depth problem.

I think in the matches that Boomra played, he didn't get enough support from the other end.

Even Sirahs didn't have that sort of impact that he would have liked to have when in the matches that Boomra played.

That is a problem that I think Morning Marcle also mentioned in one of the press conferences where when a Boomra is bowling, we need the other end to be as effective, which didn't quite happen in Manchester was one of the problems that they faced, so as I think Santigi mentioned in his piece as well, there was a period when you know, you had a Boomera and a Shami or Ishant and a Shami for example, and Bumra was not bowling.

There was a umage, there was a boobie.

These guys could all hunted packs, which I'm not sure is happening currently, and that is probably down to the depth.

And you know, Boomra and Siaj are probably well ahead of the rest of the pact that we have right now, and it's a concern that needs to be addressed, that we need a three or four solid pace bowling attack which can always hunt in pairs.

It's not one person like if Bumra is playing, he's doing the bulk of it.

If Siraj is bowling, he's the one doing all of it.

I don't think that's the way forward.

I think that is a huge issue that needs to be addressed.

It cannot be one guy leading the charge.

It cannot be three bowlers.

You're dependent on three paces in one entire innings of a Test match that toward the end of the series, you know, things like this should not be happening, So there has to be a better planning around it, which I think the Davisha's three combination doesn't get enough credit for, probably for what they did with the bowling group, especially the pace bowling group.

Yah Sandiji can take off on what they managed to achieve and what the future is looking like at the moment.

I mean back in the day like twenty sixteen, twenty twenty one, you know we had some ten fast balls going around quite decent.

You have Boomra Chami field is a very understated border, like you could plug on, keep on playing in ten o vers twelve hours.

You can bowl.

I mean with the same kind of intensity.

Then we are Dishan Sharma coming up, Mohmat Siraj was not getting knock and nave Deep saying he was an excellent baller unfortunately ruined by injuries.

But till twenty twenty one, you look at domestic cricket, there were a lot of these names.

At least they were promising one.

So also like Khalil Ahamad was young.

Now he's little kind of plattering eight to ten bowlers always to choose from Chadu, Taku, Tina Draz and so these guys.

But then now we don't even have names.

That's a problem.

Like when you look at Rangis Auld there's one Visamarwaishak who plays for balls early one thirties and combage.

Of course, I mean he's a much better bowler than what we actually saw of him.

That Test magic and is one guy.

I've seen him clocking one thirteen, one thirty four clicks.

I don't know what happened to him.

Maybe he was a little nervous, maybe he was snackled by some injury, but he definitely can bowl.

But there are another too many names.

And when you look at the most successful fastballer was Jim and Kashmir.

I mean who barely touches hundred and twenty five kilometers, So there's nobody like.

I mean who when you look around, like, who can consistently touched one thirty five?

That's why govern fast tracked ran into the Australia said he had play ten Test matches at ten first class games before he played his first Test match.

I mean, so the select present the team management and will naturally be drawn to pick whoever shows some spot, some pace in the doms sic circuit.

So that pretty much tells you, Like Hashi Rana's inclusion and Andrew Komboch I mean when Andrew kumboj you saw best backup baller.

I mean it tells much about India's bawling, dwindling, fastballing death.

I mean he can he can be groomed into a yeah.

And then then in between the bangalaes, we picked up this guy called Kumar who was like thirty cas he again he domestic.

People claim he bowls one thirty five.

And those fastballers that are come bowling one forty one for fifty k's, you know they're not sustaining themselves in the Red burg.

Also like Umran ma leak or amying these guys, you know, they just flicker and vanish.

No, that's true.

Yeah, that's absolutely true, and I think it will be by the time the next Test season comes along, it will be one of the most closely observe the trends of whether India does get enough fast bowlers.

I think that's all the time we have for today.

Thanks again, Sandep for joining us, Thanks Summit when I and thank you all for listening.

We will be back with the new episode of Game Time next week.

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