What bowling options does Team India have in the ODI format beyond Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami? How strong are India's bowling reserves?
The recently concluded Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) tour ended on a disastrous note for India as Australia came from behind to thrash the visitors 3-1. The series defeat was a monumental blow for the Men in Blue given that it was their first defeat in over a decade. The batting department featuring some legendary names like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli came under immense fire.
While many argue that it was India’s batting that primarily let them down in that series, the below-par performance of India’s bowling department has also attracted the ire of its die-hard fans and supporters. Apart from Jasprit Bumrah, who fought all the way to the end singlehandedly to keep India alive in the series, no other India bowler was able to come remotely close to haunting the Australia batters.
In that series, Bumrah alone averaged 13.06 and finished as the highest wicket-taker with a staggering 32 wickets to his name. In contrast, the rest of the bowling department averaged well over 40 and managed to take 16 wickets more than him in the series. Mohammed Shami’s absence was also another factor that contributed to India’s inevitable downfall. Shami finished as the highest wicket-taker in the 2023 ODI World Cup and the Aussies were certainly wary of what he could have produced on the bouncy Australian decks.
As the dust settles on the five-match BGT Test series, the attention now shifts to India’s major white-ball assignment i.e. Champions Trophy 2025 which is due to commence on February 15. Both Bumrah and Shami have had to contend with enormous workloads which has taken a heavy toll on them in recent times. Shami has been out of action ever since his triumphant World Cup campaign while Bumrah pulled out mid-way through the fifth Test after sustaining a back spasm.
It is high time that India start looking beyond the two premium bowlers. An attempt needs to be made to bolster the bench strength and keep the two frontline bowlers fresh for the marquee events. Furthermore, this will also enable the management to rest Bumrah and Shami whenever needed thus minimizing the possibility of fatigue or burnout.
While India continues to sweat over the participation of Bumrah and Shami for the upcoming marquee event, here are some bowling options India can explore beyond them in the ODI format.
Arshdeep Singh
Arshdeep Singh has been a prolific find for India in the limited-overs format. He is the one person they are grooming regularly in the shortest format and ODI. Being a left-arm pace bowler, Arshadeep is equipped with unique properties and brings something different to the table which makes him stand out from the rest. Unlike the case with a right-arm pacer, a left-arm pace bowler creates more natural angles making it difficult for the batters to score runs freely. After Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra, India did not have a reliable left-arm seamer for a very long time. The likes of Jaydev Unadkat and T. Natarajan came but soon faded away in thin air but Arshdeep seems to be someone who can hang around for an eternity.
Arshdeep has an impressive record in the T20I format. The 25-year-old is five wickets shy of a tally of 100 T20I wickets and has the best figures of 4-9 which he achieved against USA in the 2024 T20 World Cup. He finished the tournament as the joint-highest wicket-taker along with Fazalhaq Farooqi, both of whom claimed 17 wickets each. Arshdeep has only featured in a handful of one-day internationals for India. In only eight appearances in this format, the Punjab speedster has had a telling impact averaging 24. He recorded his best performance of 5-12 against South Africa and has picked up the most number of ODI wickets (12) against them.
Arshdeep is very young and has a long way to go in his international career. If he is groomed consistently and continues to stay on the right track, he could become a force to reckon with by the time he reaches 30, an age when most international cricketers peak.
Read More: Arshdeep Singh is now India's top wicket-taker in T20Is amongst pacers; What makes him special?
Mukesh Kumar
Mukesh Kumar is yet another bright prospect for India with the ball. While still relatively in his early days, Mukesh has shown some promising signs. He is seen as someone who can be very effective with the new ball. The tall hit-the-deck bowler can bowl a consistent line and length and has the ability to swing the ball both ways. Moreover, he adapts well according to the format and can be very lethal with his immaculate yorkers as observed in the IPL.
Mukesh’s best bowling performance in ODI cricket came against the Windies in 2023 where he picked up figures of 3/30 and averaged nearly 17 to crush them by a whopping margin of 200 runs. However, his overall ODI figures after six games are far from ideal as his average is way over 40. But that figure is expected to drop drastically once he starts making more appearances in this format.
If he is someone who takes up the new ball role along with Arshdeep then he needs to step up and start showing his potential. Unlike the T20 format where it is required to bowl only four overs, Mukesh’s resilience will be tested and he will need to be inventive in terms of getting the batters out in a number of ways in various stages of the game.
Prasidh Krishna
Prasidh Krishna has got all the impressive attributes required to be a successful fast bowler. Being tall and lean in stature, Prasidh is indeed a very gifted bowler. In addition, he has the brisk pace and regularly hits the 140 km/hr mark, while at the same time, he has also got the ability to extract sideways movement off the surface. He hasn't featured in a lot of white-ball fixtures for India of late but he left quite an impact in all the 17 ODIs that he played for India. His best performance of 4-12 came against West Indies in 2022 which allowed India to defend 237 and go 4-1 up in that series. The Bengaluru-based speedster maintains a healthy average and strike rate of 25.58 & 27.3 respectively.
Like the case with all pacers, Prasidh has also had to deal with a fair share of injuries that kept him out for a lot of action. But in the recently concluded Australia tour, Prasidh showed some promise and picked up three wickets in the second innings of the Sydney Test which included prized wickets of Sam Konstas, Marnus Labuschagne, and Steven Smith. In the absence of Bumrah, Prasidh single-handedly kept India alive on day three of that Test. But soon after lunch, Beau Webster and Travis Head got into their work and took the game as well as the series away from India in a thumping fashion.
Harshit Rana & Avesh Khan
Harshit Rana and Avesh Khan are two other youngsters that India can look at on a long-term basis. Harshit showcased promising signs in the Perth Test where he announced his arrival on the big stage with a huge wicket of Travis Head. But he soon lost his steam when India touched down on Adelaide and was eventually left out for the remainder of the Test series. While only 21, Harshit is only in the infancy stage of his career and the management should particularly take a keen interest in grooming him to make him become the next big thing for Indian cricket. When conditions are ripe, he can inflict a lot of damage on the batters with his prodigious swing and seam movement.
Avesh Khan has been yet another consistent performer for India in the absence of Bumrah and Shami in the white-ball format. Avesh played against Zimbabwe in the five-match T20I series last year and performed exceptionally well picking up six wickets at a stunning average of 13.83 which included his best figures of 3-15. Besides, he was also part of the Sri Lanka tour (white-ball) where India had mixed fortunes. Being without the services of the ace pacers, Avesh put on an impressive show finishing with figures of 2-23 in his sole T20I appearance in that series. Moreover, he also performed well in the 2023-24 South Africa tour where he bagged his career-best ODI figures of 4-27.
These youngsters are in the early stages of their professional careers. They need to travel consistently with the team to different venues and understand the craft very well. More importantly, they will need to understand the art of fine-tuning their game according to different conditions which will further enable them to drive their competitive edge and become the next generation Bumrah or Shami.
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