New Delhi
\nIndian pace attack has been a revelation this year during overseas tours but tougher conditions in Australia will make it a very challenging series for the fast bowlers, reckons former speedster Ashish Nehra.<\/p>\n
Nehra, who was a part of the Indian squad that drew 1-1 during the 2003-04 series in Australia, felt the current attack \u201chas the ability\u201d to succeed but conditions will be different than what they got in England and South Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralian team is going through a massive restructuring and this is India\u2019s best chance without doubt. We have the bowling attack to beat them. But we need to be mindful that conditions will be much tougher Down Under where the wickets will be flat and weather would be on warmer side,\u201d the 39-year-old told PTI in an interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Australia, you will get extra bounce but there will only be lateral movement till the kookaburra seam doesn\u2019t flatten. It won\u2019t be like England where the ball swings all day. Once you get adjusted to the bounce, batsmen can hit you all day,\u201d said Nehra, who has played 17 Tests and 120 ODIs apart from 27 Twenty20 Internationals.
\nThe hard Australian grounds can always pose fitness challenges for speed merchants as the feet takes a lot more pounding than England or New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn England, if your fast bowler takes a couple of wickets in a six-over spell, the captain is tempted to give two or three more overs in lure of getting couple of more wickets in midst of a good spell. In Australia, it may not be such a good idea all the time in sultry conditions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to Nehra, it will be Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma and one between Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav, who will be starting in Adelaide.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see Bhuvi starting in the first Test at least. He can struggle a bit with the old kookaburra as it will neither swing or seam unlike Dukes or SG Test,\u201d Nehra opined.<\/p>\n
Nehra said that Umesh Yadav\u2019s supreme fitness and good skill sets should make him an asset in the Australian conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still believe that Umesh is not a finished product after eight years but someone who has incredible skill sets. He is a strong lad and the fittest among all Indian pacers. A testimony to that is his performances in Indian conditions when he can reverse the 65-70 overs old ball at a good speed. You need both skill and strength for that. He should feature sometime,\u201d Nehra said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I liked was Shami bowling with fire in the second innings of the fifth Test at the Oval. Now that takes a lot of doing. I hope he can keep it up in Australia also if he starts from the first Test,\u201d he observed.<\/p>\n
Ishant Sharma\u2019s stamina will also be required as his fitness is what makes him \u201cspecial\u201d, said his former state and national team colleague.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at Ishant Sharma, the 87 Tests that he has played is a testimony to his fitness. Often people will look at the wickets column but bowling 35-40 overs for more than decade requires special skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me be honest. Whether it\u2019s me or Rudra Pratap Singh or S Sreesanth, we had more skills as fast bowler than Ishant. I had my share of injuries and RP also had fitness issues. Sreesanth was a different case altogether despite blessed with enormous skills. But then Ishant has been fit for so long, so let\u2019s give credit where it is due,\u201d said Nehra, who is still an unofficial \u2018go to\u2019 man for all premier fast bowlers in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi Indian pace attack has been a revelation this year during overseas tours but tougher conditions in Australia will make it a very challenging series for the fast bowlers, reckons former speedster Ashish Nehra. Nehra, who was a part of the Indian squad that drew 1-1 during the 2003-04 series in Australia, felt the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47270,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47268\/revisions\/47270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}