The yorker, whether reverse-swung or otherwise, has been an integral part of the problem. Munaf Patel bowled it beautifully on Test debut at Mohali against England, but has found it difficult to do the same with the white ball. And the attempts to pitch full in Cape Town played straight into Justin Kemp's hands, with his devastating straight swings sending the ball soaring over the fence.

As Brett Lee and several others have shown often enough the fast, well-directed, swinging yorker is an invaluable weapon at the denouement of a one-day innings. But it's also a delivery that leaves no margin for error. Get it wrong, and a potentially wicket-taking ball becomes a full toss, and a free hit for a batsman.

Bowling Anil Kumble at the slog could be a temporary option © AFP

The cleverly disguised change of pace is an equally potent delivery, but there too India's bowlers have a way to go to attain Steve Waugh or Dwayne Bravo standards. Bowling length balls with barely a variation in pace is a recipe for disaster, and once Kemp started teeing off, India had no answers.

The magnitude of the problem is best illustrated by figures. In 80 innings since the last World Cup, India conceded 4358 runs between the 41st and 50th overs. They took 173 wickets at 25.19 and leaked 6.44 per over. In the same time-frame, Australia also bowled in 80 innings, picking up 196 wickets at 20.07 and conceded 6.05 per over.

Since Manoj Prabhakar was eased out of the game by Sanath Jayasuriya's strokeplay at the 1996 World Cup, India have struggled to find someone adept at bowling at the death. Ajit Agarkar and Zaheer are the most experienced in the end overs, but neither has been as effective as they can be with the new ball. The new crop have also learnt the hard way. Munaf and Sreesanth bowled beautifully initially in the warm-up match against Rest of South Africa at Benoni, but once Albie Morkel and Jacques Rudolph decided to open out, they were clueless.

Turning to Kumble and spin might be a short-term answer, but with modern-day batsmen using such heavy bats, even a mis-hit could comfortably clear the rope. In the biggest game that India have played in recent memory, Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn walloped 109 from the final ten overs of the World Cup final, effectively ending it as a contest. Once or twice, Ponting lofted the ball one-handed, such was the wretched bowling on display. To avoid repeats of that fiasco and the Cape Town one, India have to find answers to an issue that could replace Fermat's Last Theorem as the problem no one can solve.

For the first time I felt like reading a good article, which clerly seems to be written by a cricket journalist and by a cricket politician. Congratulations for writing such a nice analysis on bowling.

I agree with Dileep on this. Indian pacers have struggled a lot during the last 10 overs of the shorter version of the game. I believe reverse swinging yorker and an occasional short pitched bouncer can do the trick. If one can't generate threatening pace then slower ball is a very good weapon too. Change in the pace and variation that can keep the batsman guessing is the way to go..after all this is a mind game, not just physical fitness and skills show..

I agree with Dileep on this. Indian pacers have struggled a lot during the last 10 overs of the shorter version of the game. I believe reverse swinging yorker and an occasional short pitched bouncer can do the trick. If one can't generate threatening pace then slower ball is a very good weapon too. Change in the pace and variation that can keep the batsman guessing is the way to go..after all this is a mind game, not just physical fitness and skills show..

dear dillip it seems indian team just never learns from their mistakes. during the last tour westindies in which Ganguly was the captain india lost the 3rd and final test match just because our tail refused to stay at the wicket for 5 more minutes. Earlier this year we lost again to West Indies in malaysia on D/L system because we never looked at the skies. people say that you can feel the rain in the air however dravid made sure that indians bowl 20 overs before the rain comes and to make the matter worse he didnt had the D/L paper.
Again in pakistan earlier this year pakistanm were 0/3 and 6 down for 70 odd runs yet we lost the test match as we let kamran akmal score easy runs. it was assumed by our captain that the pakistani tail will also fall like nine pins. we once again never learned the lesson here. in the 1999 test match against pakistan at the eden gardens india reduced pakistan 26/6 and yet let the then wicketkeeper Moin khan score runs. what happened we ended up loosing the test match.
We made the same mistake in the 3rd ODI. after reducing SA for 131/7 we suddenly dropped our guards in the feild and let them score at will. again we never learned our lessons. the same team led by ganguly though in zimbabwe last year let NZ score over 200 after were reduced for 30 odd with six wickets down. what happened there we lost the match.
One more instance that comes to mind is last year's indian oil cup final. Aashish nehra took his 6th wicket in his last over of the spell and in that over gave way 4 boundaries to chaminda vaas. he let his guards down, got complacent that his job for the match is done in the end those 16 odd runs proved costly to india as india i think went down as loosers by 18 runs (im not sure of the margin but it was very small)

FYI, Dileep, Fermats Last theorem has been solved recently. It's solution is huge (hundreds of pages) and very few can understand it. Whether India can solve the last 10 overs, however, is a different matter.

Nice one Dileep, you put on exactly what I usually think about Indian bowling. After this good article my question is is it useful to put effort in writing all these articles, will India team see this or even if they did will they Implement it?? No wayy ..
Bcoz If I were a selector I wud definitely fire Agarkar after WestIndies match in ICC championship, this man doesnt show any determination at all. He just had to control 2 balls for 4 runs ,any other ball in that position would put on batsmen block hole n give away single. But this guy tries to hit the deck and wanna get a bounce or tries for good length balls in the depth overs which is of no use.. He doesnt have the pace or control to make bounce from good lenght balls too.
This is only one instance of so many where he spoilt India victory.. Neverthless he gets selected, I agree he bowls some gud deliveries but wats the use if he bowls the worst bowls rest of the time .. such a lack of determination this guy has..
I request you to show all the statistics of Agarkar bowling.

Completely agree with this assessment of Indian Bowling at the end overs. I watched the last match, it was pitiful bowling, like Village team bowlers bowling. No mixing up in last few overs as is the norm. Chappell & Co have to do their homework and teach our bowlers how to ball in last 15 overs to not that recognised but pinch hitter batsmen.

Completely agree with this assessment of Indian Bowling at the end overs. I watched the last match, it was pitiful bowling, like Village team bowlers bowling. No mixing up in last few overs as is the norm. Chappell & Co have to do their homework and teach our bowlers how to ball in last 15 overs to not that recognised but pinch hitter batsmen.

Wonderful analysis. Do you share these insights with Indian officials?

Never let agarkar bowl in the death overs. Check his stats and you will realize that for his first spell he usually gives away 20-30 runs in 6-8 overs and then in death overs he ends up giving up another 20-30 runs. Balaji was one bowler who was good in death overs so was Nehra(better than the current crop). Our bowlers should stop with the yorkers because most of them turns into fulltoss and it will not work anyways, at the speed the Indian bowlers are bowling.

Two other possible alternatives exist for the
slog overs for India
(1) Joginder Sharma
(2) Sachin Tendulkar

Dear Dileep,

Completely agree with your comments. These days it’s very painful to watch Indian cricket. These guys never ever learn from mistakes no matter what facilities BCCI provide, what coach advised and what people of India feel about game. Indian cricketers are the worst in the world. Play for themself NOT for country. Never pride playing for country. They did not learn from other players and own mistakes. Every time and match same old story. Our bowers never ever think about change of pace and different bowing at different stage of game. Who says speed matter see Mcgrath. What speed he is bowing. Key the line and length which is missing in our bowing. I think BCCI should open migration policy to higher good cricketers.

Thank you for using Fermat's Last Theorem in your write-up. Though cricket is full of numbers, hardly anyone looks at them beyond usual 'cricket statistics.' FLT was cracked by Andrew Wiles in 1993-94,he used modular forms, Taniyama conjecture and so on to prove the French lawyer right. In the process, Wiles also showed that Fermat possibly couldn't have proved his theorem as the mathematical tools available then were inadequate to tame this mathematical monster. I see Greg Chappell as Pierre Fermat and he has his India's Performance Booster Theorem (IPBT). Though Chappell, like Fermat before, feels he has an elegant solution for IPBT, one suspects it will take a Wiles to crack this one too.
Thanks

hi dileep,
I agree that India needs to sort this problem out if they want to progress in odi cricket.With two left handed fast bowlers in the starting line and a couple others waiting in the wings, Wasim Akram wont be a bad person to go to advice for, be it left hand bolwers or right hand ones.because Wasim was probably the greatest exponent of the yorker the game has ever seen.

Everyone has commented on failure of different aspects of game, and probably rightly so. No one has cared to discuss one item. As I see it, Sehwag made one mistake and Sachin made one mistake in batting ad hey were out without contributing. Rahul Dravid 40+ mistakes (all those dot balls) which guaranteed that there was no way that India ould win. Remember that in an ODI, DRAW is not an option towards which a batsman can contribute. I too disliked Saurav for his arrogance, laziness, etc. but a long innings from Rahul practically guarantees defeat if RRR is greater than 5. I thik that Rahul is great for Test Matches but a negative for ODI.

Slower delivery, chest height rising delivery on offstump, yorker, reverse swing, bouncer - this is called variation in bowling. How can these bunch of jokers call themselves a bowler if they can not bowl the above deliveries? I do not understand. Look at WI or Aus bowling. Look how cleverly they bowl. We must make sure that our bowlers know how to bowl these deliveries. Otherwise they will get clobbered as usual.

Excellent analysis as it provides a perspective other than the ordinary. However, a comparison of all teams in the last 50 or 80 innings between 41st to 50th over would give a better idea of where India stands viz-a-viz other nations. Other than that, an excellent piece!

Dear Mr. Dilip,
Your article was very interesting. You have made the right post-mortem. Even senior bowlers like Ajit Agarkar and Zaheer Khan were bowling like novices. In this situation we badly need a bowling coach. Most of the best teams have a bowling coach except India. What do we expect from our new crop of bowlers who have no idea at all about the bouncy and fast pitches outside India. We have also to prepare fast and bouncy pitches in India instead of the dead batting pitches where our batsmen perform like tigers, but on foreign soil they are like wet cats. I hope BCCI will seriously look into it. Like Kapil Dev said everything is forgot once the series is over and it is back to square one. Indian cricket have no future if the BCCI does not change according to the latest requirements of modern cricket, just being the richest board does not make good cricket or cricketers. BCCI please wake up. Thanks once again Mr. Dilip for a good artilce.

I appreciate your crystal clear analysis and in fact its worth reading. I also would like to comment being a cricket lover.We keep on execute our expertise extensively but the reality what in my opinion is superb fitness is the key to the game and it gives the edge of dominance over the opponent. This is what the quality gifted in teams like S.Africa or Australia. Winning is the ultimate essence. For instance, cricket, if compared in our sub-continent, although there is abundance of talent, but the kind of aggressive display to supersede over the other rarely seen on the ground by the teams from this side of the world. Competitive temperament could wall any imposing target. We yearn and fail to see the kind of killing instinct quality every time. Consistency and promising expectations is ever disappointing. Most important aspect is the core collective national spirit. In this course, the very lesson has to learn is the ‘Selflessness’, all blood and sweat is meant to uphold the glory and honor of the country alone. I think this is the key and the foremost essense that we need to sow not only in cricket but any other sport we go to display on the international arena.

Nice article....Dileep is as good as ever...India has been struggling to find a good quality death bowler for a very long time. The difference between great and ordinary sides is the strength to tighten the screws when the situation calls for it. One thing we manage to do so well these days is giving up when the situation demands the most. As this old saying puts it, "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going". Well, the going is definitely getting tougher & tougher for India, and it remains to be seen how they manage to pull the strings together in-time before the World cup comes calling early next year. With the current form, they are nowhere near giving a run for money for any major team.

In INDIAN team, there is a reservation for one all rounder.
He is a very good PAST BOWLER and a Great BATSMAN
He is introduced only in 31over.(this is very important). He finished his spell continuously.
Once he is not performed well then he is replaced by only another ALL ROUNDER not a bowler or batsman.

This only is a match-winning theorem

Other wise we hear the message indian cricket team win the match some years before in abroad.

The ALL ROUNDER is most likely
Kapil dav
Robin sing
Ganguly
Pathan

Please send this article to India Team, they are at the highest level but seems to forget the basics.

It was refreshing reading an analysis of what we suspected all along, and the stats were nice. I wonder what the stats regarding the Indian batting towards the death are. Earlier, it appeared that they were struggling to impose themselves at the death, even though they were in a good position. These days, they are struggling to reach the death overs too.....

Bang on Dileep. Good one .
Yes one of major problems clearly is
the 'late over ineptitude' syndrome .. with due respect; this is unfortunately in indian psyche ;
the coach & captain has to rid of this lathargy;
the historical angle/analysis of this problem
is correct; and right way forward .

The stats not all that conclusive, me thinks. India conceded 6.44 run per over in last 10 overs compared to 6.04 by Aus ... although significant, it's only about a 6% difference. Point is, how does this compare with the picture for the rest of the overs ... if India anyway performed worse than Aus over the first 40 overs with significantly more than 6%, it would actually prove the opposite! Wonder what those figures actually are?

Dead right!It was nice reading the article about the problem we all always felt. Now its been a long history of matches where Indian bowling has been taken apart in the slog overs. But what's more surprising that India has't come up with any sort of solution, Instead they have revert back to Agarkar for the job time and again.That's indicate that we are not having the kind of bench strength of fast bowlers that we should have. And that's somewhat sorry state of affairs for a cricket crazy nation like India.

What Dileep said is what now happening in our team...same is happening in Batting also..if we look our final 10 over scores..it will not be so high as other team performs in last over..this problems should be solved if india wants his team strong

The article is informative and seems to be reflective of the problem the Indian bowling faces, but somehow it is not backed by good statistics. There is really not much gap in rpo conceeded by Australia and India (about 0.5) in the last ten overs, but there is a lot of difference in the results both teams have had since the world cup. Maybe this means that bowling in the final overs is really not Indian teams biggest problem. Though, it would be interesting to see how other teams in the world perform on this criteria.

I never thought I would ever have seen Fermat's Last Theorem mentioned in an article dealing with cricket.

I will be going to the Pro-20 match at the wanderers, and hopefully there the Indian team will be able to put together 20 good overs with the "death syndrome"!!

Anyway, if they going to concede that many runs at the death, then they should also be able to score as many in the last overs.

I agree on your comments. And also why they do not bowl in a proper place ie in good length. They have played a quiet no of games for india, beofre that for their states. When they play for their states they play like this or just to get into the indian team they play like this. whenever we see their kind of game it just look like gully cricket. The comments on they dont have experience does not look nice. When they dont have experience y picking them & sending them to the places where they have not played. If they are not good enough let them sit & give chance for other people.

I think that the Dark Goggles worn by the indian fielders especially at the slip might have caused dropped catches.

Dear Dileep
Fermat's last theorem has been solved, but the indian problems can't be solved :)

Dileep has given an in-depth article as to why India's performance has been dismal in some key ODI matches over the last few seasons. However, to say that Brett Lee bowls well in the end overs is surely false. He's one of the most expensive bowlers at the death and I've never seen him bowl a yorker. It's always fast, no pace variation, and on a length that makes it ideal for batsmen to swing at. If they get the middle of the bat, it flies for six or four somewhere in front of square; if it's short, then it's usually slashed away fine of third-man for 4. In my opinion, he's one of the worst death bowlers in the world! The 330-332 match against NZ and the 434-438 match against SA earlier this year are good examples of the point I'm trying to make.

Totally Senseless Article.
How Long are you going to continue building Excuses for FAILING batsmen?
ALL our recent losses:ALL,EVERY single one of them can be clearly attributed to our batsmen NOT performing to par.This is NOT about batsmen's AVERAGES.They simply are NOT up to the challenge posed by the opponent.If India is chasing,THere is a convenient collapse always.And if India is batting first,Top order Batsmen(Read: Sachin,Kaif) Bat Slow,BELOW par,and end up giving the bowlers a below par total to defend.
Why all this effort over something that happens rarely surprises me.Indian bowling in ODIs as been the best in the last few years given the new rules of the game.They give away as few runs as possible,on average.Occasionally,opponents get away.NOT (MERELY) because the Bowling lost its way;But MAINLY because Opponent's Batsmen did NOT give up,played with a die hard spirit.Why is it unreasonable to expect Tendulkar or Kaif to play like that?