Published: Feb 27, 2014, 02:17 PM (IST)
Edited: Feb 27, 2014, 05:54 PM (IST)
By CS Krishna
Please note this is a humour article – work of pure fiction
Although India have finally ended their overseas drought by registering a morale-boosting win over a strong opposition, Bangladesh, concerns regarding India’s bowling still persist. Yesterday, it was Varun Aaron’s turn to trend on social media for his wayward bowling, triggering a ‘Bring back Ishant Sharma’ online petition campaign.
Concerned with mounting jokes about the Indian bowling attack on the social media, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) turned to Anil Kumble, one of India’s fastest bowlers, to mentor Indian pacers. Kumble, who was known as Jumbo in his heydays for his top-spinners that viciously rose from short of a good length into the batsman’s ribcages and bouncers camouflaged as leg-breaks, will try and teach the art of bowling with pace and aggression to the Indian attack.
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Kumble said he is looking forward to the biggest challenge in his career but has insisted that Venkatesh Prasad compliment him as assistant coach to work with the spinners. The Kumble-Prasad duo were one of the famed hunting packs in their time with batsmen often falling to Prasad’s off-cutters after Kumble had set them up with his pace.
Prasad said his first task will be to get Ravichandran Ashwin to vary the duration of his pregnant pauses during his delivery stride to bring in much needed variety. “If he can’t turn the ball much at least he can keep the batsman guessing as to when he will release the bowl,” noted the famed exponent of bowling an even slower ball after bowling a slow one.
(CS Krishna, with Karthik Laxman, is the co-founder of www.theunrealtimes.com, where this article was originally published. The Unreal Times is India’s favourite satire, spoof, parody and humour portal where Krishna and Karthik jointly write under the pseudonym of UnReal Mama)
