Bowlers face much hard run than the batsman on and off the field

Cricket now a day’s holds an image more of a batsman game. Since the advent of cricket, Bowlers have always discovered a hard time on and off the field. In a world where every single kid dreams of becoming a next Sachin Tendulkar, only few out of those would want to turn up into Shane Warne and Anil Kumble. Everyone would remember the highest individual score of 200* by Sachin Tendulkar but I am sure very few would be retrieved of Shane Warne’s contribution to his team in winning uncountable matches for Australia. Consistent alteration in bowling deadlines has also affected the Bowlers to an extent. Fielding restrictions puts another nab to the sealed casket of bowlers, earlier the rule was adhere to the front-line and the outcome was a penalty of an extra-ball and a bonus run to the batting side, but now it results in a ‘Free Hit’. It means along with an additional run and a delivery, batsman have a chance to bang the bowler to any part of the park without the fear of being caught, bowled, stumped. This is like adding insult to an injury. Another restriction comes up in the form of a one bouncer per over.  A bowler has just single chance of making life difficult for the batsman, though it is not the batsman fault, it is the game’s fault but with so many restrictions, bowlers still get purchase from the wicket, makes them think, and always proved that taking wickets is anytime tough than putting runs on the board. At the  end  of the day, it is bowlers who finds themselves at the receiving end.

                       T20 has also made bowlers struggle for their part. Twenty over fixture has changed the bowler’s scenario big time, this form of cricket purely defines batsman dominance, and it is the bowler, who gets small life of four overs in which he has to do all the damage. Sometimes cricket just do not let bowlers take credit, just like Soccer do not give credit to defenders. It is, as if they play their heart out on the field and goes home empty handed. The best example if I have to take, I would pick Zaheer Khan’s immaculate contribution in the ICC 2011World Cup. When world cup started, he was aware of the fact that there was no one backing him up, and he has to take all heavy responsibility on his shoulders, Zaheer responded brilliantly and gave breakthroughs to his captain at the time, when it was required. However, he hardly got any recognition, as Yuvraj pulled all the attention with his all-around execution.  Yuvi’s contribution cannot be push aside. Still for me, Zaheer was the man of the tournament. Both batting and bowling are of equal importance buts let’s start giving bowlers at least some credit for their hard work they put, who knows, if we start give credit to them, their level of performance might get raised. This could prove to be confident booster for them. Bowling requires much more hard work then batting. It is cruel that batsmen get all the credit. However, unfortunately that’s the way it is.   Bowling not a bread butter