With a busy home summer and, more importantly, an Australian tour on the horizon, the selectors would have their cameras zoomed in on the performances of a number of quick bowlers presently bowling in the Duleep Trophy. VidwathKaverappa and Harshit Rana, who took six wickets between them in the first innings of India A, are a couple of those pace bowlers eyeing a ticket to Australia.
Rana, the tall and well-built bowler, has the right attributes to succeed Down Under. He showcased some of those skills on Day 1. Harshit extracted bounce by hitting the deck hard, and also found seam movement at waspish pace. But there was something else that might have impressed the selectors: He also bowled with a fair bit of bowling smarts and the right mindset.
A glimpse of it could be observed when Tilak Varma, India A’s No. 3 batter, took his guard. Initially, he tucked up the left-handed Varma and kept him on the back foot by finding enough lift from the surface. Soon, he shifted to bowling from round the wicket and attempted to pin him down with a fuller length, nip-backer. It is true the replays indicated that it would comfortably missed the legstump. But the salient feature of that two-card trick was Rana employing the tried-and-tested formula of pushing the batter back and then experimenting with his lengths and angle of attack.
For long periods of the day’s play, Rana operated with similar plans and was rewarded with a couple of wickets. He added two more scalps to his tally the next day and finished with a four-for. Kaverappa, his team-mate, also put on a noteworthy show and took two for 30 from 15 overs. Compared to Rana, Kaverappa lacks a yard or two of pace. Kaverappa, however, makes it up with his unremitting control, alongside nifty movement and bounce.
The three parts of his quiver were very much visible when he dislodged his state-mate Mayank Agarwal. Basically, Agarwal had to play at a delivery that kicked extra from a length and also nipped back to force the batter to edge one to the ‘keeper. Kaverappa went on to pick up just one more scalp in the rest of the innings, but he rarely lost his nagging accuracy.
So, just like Rana, does Kaverappatoo have enough artillery to make it to the Indian Test squad? The one point always held against Kaverappa is that he doesn’t have the required burst of pace to make it to the next level and earn his India cap. To some extent it is true. In the first innings, his quickest delivery was around 136 kph and slowest about 122 kph.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t bowl enough deliveries at around 85mph or 137-138 kph. If and whenKaverappa is able to consistently touch such speeds, he could be a handful. It has to be remembered that Kaverappa has a couple of other traits in his armour. So, he doesn’t really have to bowl at express pace to survive the hard grind of Test cricket.
For the time being, Rana seems to be ahead of Kaverappa in the pecking order. India have also picked Akash Deep and Yash Dayal, the left-arm pacer, in the main squad for the opening Test versus Bangladesh. Even in the ongoing Duleep Trophy, there are a few more pacemen vying for places in the India Test squad. Logic says that, among the reserves, Rana might be best suited to take advantage of the conditions in Australia.
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