India's frontline seamers have been the surprise package of the World Cup

Umesh Yadav celebrates his second wicket against Pakistan in AdelaideMohit Sharma walks into a glitzy convenience store in Perth. The Indian girl at the counter finds him vaguely familiar, and excitedly asks if he is who she thinks he is-a member of the Indian World Cup team. "Yes," replies the 26-year-old from Faridabad, "I'm a fast bowler."Fast bowler-an Indian? One of three, actually!Times are definitely changing for a team known for their dazzling batting, their spin kings, and those who run in fast but rely more on swing or seam rather than hurtling the ball at speeds consistently over 140 km an hour. In Australia, Sharma and two others-Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami-have clocked not just speed, they have also found ways to get the ball to swing and seam. Midway through the tournament, the Indian pace trio has been the story of the World Cup so far, with Bhuvaneshwar Kumar adding a more conventional but just as effective swing twist to complete the quartet.Going into the match against West Indies at Perth on March 6, the Indians have bowled out the opposition in all their three matches so far. Considering two of them were against Pakistan and South Africa (the third was against a UAE that was bundled out for 102), this is a statistic that holds value. Scratch below the surface and you find that the Indian pacers have been picking a wicket every 25 balls and have the best economy rate in the tournament.From a pop-gun attack just a couple of weeks before the tournament began, this 180-degree turn has turned Team India's fortunes on its head. On the eve of the West Indies match on the fastest and the bounciest pitch in the world at the WACA ground, all the talk was about fast bowlers, but not about those from the Caribbean islands. In the World Cup so far, Yadav has clocked 148 km per hour, Shami has routinely hit the 145-mark and Sharma has crossed 140."They don't have as much experience as we had back then," Aaqib Javed, part of the Pakistani pace battery of the 1990s, tells India Today. "But I see shades of our bowling attack in them. They are aggressive, they go for the wickets, and they are using the new ball well. They are competing among themselves and that is giving the captain M.S. Dhoni the strength and the belief to back them."Many factors come to mind when you think of a possible miracle cure for a department that has been India's weakness for so long. Was it the boot camp Dhoni had taken his pacers to just before the World Cup that did it? Was it the momentum gained in that memorable win over Pakistan? Or was it team director Ravi Shastri's threat-if you can't run in hard and bend your back, I will put you on the plane back home?Bowling coach Bharat Arun and coach Duncan Fletcher too are said to have assessed the wrist and seam positions of the pacers and worked in the nets to iron out flaws. On single-wicket nets, the bowlers were made to get closer to the stump while bowling so that batsmen cannot make out the late movement. They were asked to pitch it up, and fields were set accordingly. Sharma, especially, was made to work on his variations. He has two bouncers-a quicker and a slower one-is skiddy off the track and can bowl back-of-the-hand slower ones. Though he was a late replacement for the injured but experienced Ishant Sharma, his presence has suddenly lent teeth to the attack.The fact that the bowlers got to bowl in the evening in the first two games further added to their effectiveness. With a cool breeze and an overcast evening sky in Adelaide against Pakistan, the ball swung freely, and the humid cauldron at the MCG caught the South Africans off guard as the Indians hit the right lengths to get the ball to seam. Two deliveries that particularly stood out from those matches were the quick bouncers -both bowled by Shami that got him the wickets of Younis Khan and Hashim Amla.Fast-bowling legend Curtly Ambrose, bowling consultant with the West Indies, describes the Indian pacemen as the "most effective" in the World Cup. "You can bowl fast but you need two things to be lethal-accuracy and the ability to read the batsman's mind," he says. "I like their action and how they are coming close to the stumps in their delivery stride. They are hitting the deck at around three-quarters, which is giving them both the bounce and seam movement."Another former West Indian great, Clive Lloyd, who had at his disposal at least four fearsome quicks at any time during the late 1970s and 1980s, says he is pleasantly surprised by what the Indian pacemen are doing. "You cannot win the World Cup in these conditions just with your batting. If people are talking about them as favourites already, it is due to the turnaround in their bowling," he says. "Dhoni has five wicket-taking bowlers and he can throw the ball to any of them."India head to New Zealand for their last two league games in more seam-friendly conditions but the business end of the tournament will be a challenge of a different kind-played as much in the mind as it is on the ground. In the knockout roulette, Dhoni will want his pacemen fit and ready. For the consensus Down Under is that if they can maintain their form, anything's possible.Follow the writer on Twitter @vikrantgupta73To read more, get your copy of India Today here.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Mar 5, 2015 00:24 IST--- ENDS ---

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India's frontline seamers have been the surprise package of the World Cup

For a country never known for its quick bowlers, India's frontline seamers have been the surprise package of the World Cup.

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