New Delhi, January 24: Legendary New Zealand all-rounder Sir Richard Hadlee today applauded India for raising its stature to number one Test team in the world rankings, but believes that the sub-continent was in desperate need of more quality pace bowlers to win matches.
”India have been performing well in international cricket but they needs to develop more quality bowlers who can win matches for them.
”Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, S Sreeshanth and Ashish Nehra are those on whom India is currently dependant on. They need to find bowlers who can bounce well, come up with swing attack which definitely will make a difference in winning matches against sides like South Africa, Australia,” said Hadlee, who was present here in a seminar ‘New Zealand Invest 2010′.
The former Kiwi paceman, however, appreciated India’s effort to reach the pinnacle of world cricket saying, ”They deserve to be rated as the number one Test side. It will be a big challenge for them to maintain the status quo.
”There will pressure on India now to continue their number one status against teams like South Africa, Australia. They will also face big challenge to win matches in the sub-continent.” On a query if he would be taking up any bolwing coach role with India, Hadlee outrightly replied, ”if somebody comes to me I would think over it”.
”It’s being long that I am involved in cricketing affairs, but yes, coaching India will be great.” However, he refused to comment anything over former South African medium-pacer Eric Simons’ appointment as India’s new bowling consultant replacing Venkatesh Prasad.
Hadlee, who has scalped altogether 589 wickets from his 86-Test and 115-ODI, admitted that there have been emergence of lot of fast bowlers in the world of cricket including Pakistan’s Mohammad Aamer, Mohammad Asif, Australia’s Mitchell Johnson, Doug Bollinger among others.
”(Mohammad) Asif has been outstanding recently. He has made a comeback to his side and showed enough promise and excellence in pace bowling. Aamer has also lot of potential and such a quality bowler at an young age which Wasim Akram once displayed.
”Bollinger and Johnson has also been impressive for Australia.” However, the legendary cricketer said any fast bowler from across the world will have difficulty in coming up with good results in the sub-continent – India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh.
”Any fast bowler coming anywhere from the world will have lot of challenges to perform well in the sub-continent as 60%-70% of the matches they have to play in the sub-continent,” he cautioned.
On donning the new role of promoting New Zealand in India to attract more investors, the 58-year-old said the new job was challenging and difficult even more than cricket.
–Agencies