Former West Indies pacer and popular commentator, Ian Bishop, reckons Indian cricket understood the need to create a fast bowling culture in time and is now reaping the rewards of that.
Bishop once again heaped praise on India's battery of fast bowlers, including the likes of Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who have done well at home and away and in doing so, inspired a generation of young quicks at the levels below.
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"India are at the forefront, the vanguard, of this fast bowling renaissance because they obviously recognised this years ago," Bishop said on Sony Ten's Pit Stop show.
"If you want to be the number one team in the world, you cannot rely on your spinners all the time because when you travel to western countries, spin is apparently only a certain stage of the game, you have to have fast bowling and India have found that."
Bishop reckons India needs to manage these pacemen, especially someone like Bumrah really well, given the pressure and workload of playing all three formats.
"Jasprit is one of a small group of bowlers who transcend the various formats of the game. But you can't expect him to last if he is playing every game in every format. The human body cannot do that. You have to manage these precious resources because he is a generational talent," he said.
Bishop, who played 43 Tests and 84 ODIs from 1989 to 1998, believes we are living in a golden age of fast bowling, where teams across the globe have deeper attacks than they did before.
"I think we are in a golden period of fast bowling. You look at what the West Indies are bringing, then there is (Mitchell) Starc and (Josh) Hazlewood for Australia along with the number one-ranked Test bowler in the world as well (Pat Cummins)," he said.
"England have Jofra Archer and Mark Wood to supplement the experience of (Stuart) Broad and (James) Anderson. Jofra (Archer) I think has the best action in world cricket at the moment."
"Pakistan have found at least three young bowlers that are really good. Sri Lanka have one that I can think of, Lahiru Kumara. New Zealand have good quick bowlers as well," Bishop added.
The 52-year-old paid tribute to West Indies batting great Sir Everton Weekes, who passed away on Wednesday (July 1) at the age of 95 in Barbados.
"The thing I remember most about him was during the now-defunct Stanford T20 tournament in the Caribbean Sir Everton was hailed as one of the legends. So I recall a lot of time sitting at his feet not literally, but metaphorically," Bishop said.
"Never once I came away from his presence without feeling joyful, light and educated. He was so humble. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to celebrate his life instead of mourning his loss because we all have to go. I'm going to celebrate what he brought to our life into my life personally," he added.
(Inputs from PTI)
