India’s bowling woes just seem to never end !!!

The recent performances by the Indian team, with the series wins against the Aussies and West Indies, might have excited the Indian cricket fans. With India batting outfit successfully being able to chase 300+ or even 350+ totals against the Aussies batting line-up, and leading the team to series wins, the bowling woes seems to have gone unnoticed. Except for of course, 1 game-changer of an over from Ishant Sharma to Faulkner, that might as well have called for a premature retirement for the speedster from International cricket.
  Currently the team is too dependent on the batting department, who must every match after match, be expected to come to the party and bail the team out of trouble. One average to bad day with the willow, and Team India finds themselves staring at defeat. So lets try and evaluate what exactly has been going wrong with our bowling department. Most importantly I feel our pacemen aren’t being able to do a good job. While Bhuvneshwar Kumar/Shami have been able to get early breakthroughs, their bowling at the death of an innings has been miserable to say the least with the last 5 overs on an average yielding over 60 runs, including an 84 run blitzkrieg at the death (last 5 overs) by the South Africans in the 1st match of the ongoing series. India desperately needs somebody to put up his hand and take the responsibility of the death overs. Mohit Sharma is still too inexperienced to take up this responsibility. The only solace in the bowling department seems to be the spinners doing a decent job in the middle overs, with Ravindra Jadeja in particular turning more into the role of a bowling all-rounder. Even Ashwin and Raina have been doing a decent job in the home series, but the South African tour will prove a real test of mettle for our spinners.
  So then where is the current team going wrong??? Are we not fielding our best bowling line-up, or is it just the lack of quality pacemen in the country. Well for starters I feel, Zaheer Khan needs to feature in the starting line-up, as he has been the only consistent fast bowler for India in the last decade or so. The way he bowled in the 2011 World Cup was just outstanding. Also I feel India needs to seriously sport better more competitive pitches, with more pace and bounce. Else, otherwise, right from the grassroot level, pace bowling will be discouraged as a sign of going for plenty. While we are being able to more than make up for it with spin bowling, and a in-form batting attack, in the home games, it is yet to be seen how well we can perform overseas, with such a depleted bowling line-up. Hence its time to serious take note of the way our bowlers perform in more bowler-friendly conditions in South Africa.