IND vs AUS: India head coach Rahul Dravid explains why India don’t have part-time bowlers
Saurabh Anand
Rahul Dravid opened up on why India don’t have part-time bowlers.
Part-timers have become a big talking point in Indian Cricket before the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 in India. They played a crucial role in India’s 2011 World Cup win. Suresh Raina, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, along with Yuvraj Singh were an integral part of the playing XI with a variety of bowling options available in the middle overs. The current Indian team lacks a similar set of players.
Rahul Dravid blames it on powerplay rule
Team India head coach Rahul Dravid has explained the lack of part-timers and blamed it on the powerplay. Not only with Team India, part-timers are very rare to see now. Teams rely more on all-rounders than a batter who can bowl a bit. In 2015, ICC brought a change in power play and allowed only 4-fielders outside the ring between 11-40 overs. Due to this teams use their bowling options cautiously.
Talking about the lack of part-timers Rahul Dravid said, “I think it could be because of the rule change. Suddenly you have gone from four fielders inside the ring to five fielders inside the ring. I think that has drastically changed the ability of part-time bowlers to be able to bowl in the middle phase.” Team India had a history of using their part-timers more effectively in the One-day Internationals than any other team in the world.
Virender, Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, and Suresh Raina, all were known for their partnership-breaking ability as well. Dravid felt that they bowled in a different rule that brought a lot of success to them in this format. Suresh Raina was a regular off-spinner under MS Dhoni’s captaincy with 36 ODI wickets in 101 innings he bowled. Similarly, Sehwag, Sachin, and Sourav all have good numbers in bowling.
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Rahul Dravid further added, “If you remember all those names (Sachin, Sehwag, Sourav, Raina) bowling in this phase. A lot of these guys started when there used to be only four fielders in the ring. In that kind of a situation, you could use a lot of part-time bowlers and not only us but a lot of teams also did that. If you notice, the number of part-timers gone down in other teams as well.” Team India play with Hardik Pandya as an all-rounder in the playing eleven. No one among Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, and Shreyas Iyer are used as an extra bowling option.
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