Left-arm speedsters: The ethereal charm of pace bowling at its peak

Having a left-arm quick of Arshdeep Singh's calibre gives the bowling attack the much-needed heft and variety. It's like having another bow in Team India's quiver, or an ace up their sleeve

Marrying skill, athleticism, and finesse, Mitchell Starc’s bowling is a sight to behold. There is magic in the manner he powers to the crease and flicks the ball with his cocked wrist to generate late swing.

 

One cannot blame Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill for looking like deer caught in the headlights, trying to negotiate Starc’s devilish deliveries in the just concluded Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Adelaide.

 

Watching left-arm quick bowling at full tilt is one of cricket’s most ethereal sights. Wasim Akram remains the high priest of left-arm fast bowling, although fans from a different generation may pick Australia’s Alan Davidson over the Punjabi from Lahore.

 

Akram was a wizard who would hustle in from 15 paces to deliver at frightening pace backed by unmatched control over swing and seam. Over the course of nearly two decades, from 1984 to 2003, the “Sultan of Swing” had the impassivity to break a few skulls, even as he perfected the art of reverse swing under Imran Khan’s tutelage. 

 

Arguably Pakistan’s greatest cricketer, Akram possessed cricketing intelligence to recalibrate his plans spell by spell, over by over, and ball by ball. Simply put, he was a captain’s delight and a batter’s nightmare.

 

Davidson, who plied his trade through the 1950s and early 60s, was a bowler with an economical action who could extract copious amounts of swing from the most benign surfaces.

 

Before Kapil Dev burst on to the national consciousness in 1978, India had a left-arm pacer from Rajkot named Karsan Ghavri. A bowler with a square jawline, lithe frame, and indefatigable spirit, Ghavri was the first Indian pacer to get 100 Test wickets.

 

At the turn of the century, Zaheer Khan made a splash with a 150 kmph thunderbolt that sent former Australia captain Steve Waugh’s stumps for a walk. Khan would discover his verve during India’s tour of England in 2007, when he became the team’s bowling lynchpin. Like Akram, Khan possessed cricketing nous and developed several variations, including the knuckleball, which helped him get crucial scalps in the limited-overs format.

 

India still gets misty-eyed over M S Dhoni’s six in the 2011 World Cup final against Sri Lanka. But without Khan’s 21 wickets in that showpiece tournament, India would not have made the stellar march to the summit clash in Mumbai.

 

Intermittently through the 2000s, Khan found an ally in Ashish Nehra, another left-armer, who created awkward angles for right-handers with the incoming delivery. Sadly, a fragile body scuppered every ounce of Nehra’s bouncebackability. In 2003, Irfan Pathan, who grew up idolising Akram, piqued the nation’s interest with his swing, spirit, and curly locks. Three years later, Pathan would turn into a national hero after picking a hat-trick against Pakistan on Day 1 of a Test match in Karachi. By the end of 2007, Pathan’s swing and pace had nosedived. Injuries added to his woes, and he was never quite the threat he once was.

 

In recent times, India have unearthed another left-arm fast bowler named Arshdeep Singh. Singh was part of India’s 2018 title-winning U-19 World Cup squad. In 2022, he would make his international debut against England. Since then, the youngster has made a name for himself as a limited-overs specialist, unleashing yorkers at 140kmph with ease. In 60 T20Is, and through several International Premier League outings, Singh has displayed unflappable temperament, prompting cricketing pundits to wonder why he is not playing Test cricket. The 25-year-old, who was a key member of India’s World T20 triumph in the Caribbean earlier this year, has expressed his desire to feature in the game’s traditional format.

 

Indian selectors have missed a trick by not including Singh in the ongoing Test series Down Under. In Australia, he would have been the perfect foil to Jasprit Bumrah. Singh could have quelled the irrepressible Travis Head with his ability to bring the ball into the left-hander and then swing it away.

 

Head’s belligerence notwithstanding, Singh could have exploited his weakness outside the off-stump, which some of India’s right-handed bowlers have failed to do so far.

 

Having a left-arm quick of Singh’s calibre gives the bowling attack the much-needed heft and variety. It’s like having another bow in Team India’s quiver, or an ace up their sleeve. Pigeonholing Singh as a white-ball specialist is the greatest disservice to this sparkling young talent.