During his playing days, Javagal Srinath often had to wage a lone battle as the pace spearhead and lacked support from the other end. Even though India’s fast bowling fortunes have changed for the better, constant injuries to the pacer have become a point of concern in recent times. As India looks to build the next core group of speedsters, Srinath stressed the importance of having a pack to share the burden.
“I always felt that fast bowling is about a group of bowlers together. It is about conservation of energy, and you will be able to build a good team. But if you are all alone, you will bowl 16-17 overs and become ineffective. So if you have 3-4 good fast bowlers, your team is always effective, and the striking ability is far better,” said Srinath at a panel discussion during the Events and Entertainment Management Association conclave here on Saturday.
The Mysuru Express, as he was called during his playing days, felt that having enough volume of overs under the belt is key to avoiding injuries.
“Sometimes we bowl less. I think, in my opinion, the more you bowl, the better your body is. Your muscles improve, which is why I have always advocated that Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra play county cricket. You end up bowling around 300-400 overs and build strong muscles, which will help prevent injuries.
“If you don’t bowl enough and all of a sudden if you are bowling the third spell, that is around 3.30 p.m., you end up pulling a muscle or probably tearing your ligament or hamstrings or whatever. So it is important that you play enough, which means good 1000-1600 overs a year that will keep you in good shape,” he added.
Srinath was a key part of the national side’s graph going up at the start of the century after the match-fixing scandal, and the former Karnataka pacer praised Sourav Ganguly’s leadership during that phase.
“Post the match-fixing scandal, a lot of things came good to us. I think there was a bit of a resoluteness in every player to really put that image back and prove to the world that cricket was clean. Every individual showed leadership. Then the team started winning not only in India, but we were winning abroad as well,” said Srinath, who is currently an ICC Match Referee and officiated in more than 500 games.
On the question of handling pressure, especially during India-Pakistan matches, Srinath said the key was not to overdo things.
“When you play Pakistan, I think we try to push ourselves. Sometimes we overdo things and mess it up as well. I mean, that’s another problem.
So, whenever we have played against Pakistan, especially in my four World Cups, we have said, first, don’t get too excited. Please be there, do your normal work, and stick to the basics. These are the things that we try to do. Everybody wants to be spectacular on the field all the time. In my time, we won all four against Pakistan. That’s because they wanted to be spectacular. That’s where they mess it up. We stuck to our basics and did all the good jobs and therefore won,” Srinath remarked.