The former Indian pacer Praveen Kumar feels that the Indian batsmen struggle in the swing-bowling condition because they mostly play on flat wickets.
Though the present Indian national cricket team are in good form, they have recently struggled in the swing-bowling condition. During the last England tour, Indian batsman mostly failed to fight against the swing bowlers. The visiting side India lost that five-match Test series by the 4-1 margin.
Recently, the Indian batsmen have struggled in the late moment of the ongoing New Zealand tour. The visiting side India dominated in the first three ODIs of the five-match ODI series. However, they lost the fourth ODI at Hamilton after the hosts bundled them up for just 92 runs in the perfect swing-bowling condition.
Praveen Kumar believes that the Indian batsmen’s footwork is not well for the swing-bowling condition. As the Indian batsmen are regularly playing on flat wickets, their footwork has become used to for that situation. But when they have to play in the swing-bowling condition, they panic hugely.
The former Indian pacer told India Today, “It happens mainly because we have been playing regularly on flat wickets. Batsmen have got used to that footwork and are not able to move their feet accordingly when the ball starts swinging. This I feel is the biggest reason why we have struggled to adjust to swinging, be it in England or in New Zealand. The batters simply panic.”
ICC tournaments offer flat wickets
However, Praveen Kumar doesn’t believe that the Indian batsmen are the only to face challenges in the swing-bowling condition. Rather than, he thinks that it is a big problem of every international batsman.
The 32-year-old further said that the ICC tournaments generally offer flat wickets which are the reason of batsmen’s broad failure in the swing-bowling condition. He believes that as the batting friendly pitches are very common these days, a team struggles hugely in the ball-moving tracks.
He said, “As we have normally seen, flat wickets are given in multi-nation tournaments. This is done so that games are high scoring and crowds enjoy the maximum. This problem of swing bowling is being faced by batsmen the world over. It is not that just we are struggling. It is always difficult to bat whenever the ball swings. We have made huge scores in ODIs and there will be a one-off instance when we are bowled out cheaply too.”
In his time, Praveen Kumar was a swing-bowling specialist. He played six Tests, 68 ODIs and 10 T20Is for the Indian national cricket team. The right-arm pacer made his international debut in late 2007 and played his last international game in March 2012. He was a handy swing bowler as he took a total of 112 international wickets. However, the fitness issues became the strong barrier of his international career.
Praveen Kumar announced his retirement from the cricket in last October.