Indian bowlers and their bunnies
Originally bunny was the term coined for lower order batsman who usually struggles to score runs. Over the years the term Bunny is also being used for established batsman who many times gets out to the bowling of same bowler many times during his career and generally he can not score freely against the bowling of the particular bowler.
There are so many instances in test cricket, where an otherwise established and reputed batsman could not decipher the bowling of a particular bowler of the opposing team, and as and when the bowler comes to bowl, the condition of batsman would be either he struggles to score and or gets out to the bowling of that bowler.
However, in a country like India which is obsessed with batting, there have been bowlers who, with their skills and tenacity, have managed to out-think and outdo some of the most renowned batsmen around the world, making them their ‘bunny’ in the process
1 Anil Kumble v Adam Gilchrist (Aus)
Anil Kumble was of India’s greatest match winners and as of date India’s highest wicket-taker in Tests (619). Kumble had the aggression reminiscent of a fast bowler and passion akin to a warrior. He loved raising his game against the very best, and the ‘very best’ in the era that ‘Jumbo’ played was the Australian team that glittered with a plethora of match winners, one of them being Adam Gilchrist.
Gilchrist went about redefining the role of the wicket-keeper batsman in the 21st century, but even he couldn’t decipher the skill of Kumble. Gilchrist, fell to Kumble’s trickery nine times in 18 encounters, roughly once in every two innings, making it a 50% success rate for the champion spinner.
2 Kapil Dev v Mudassar Nazar (Pak)
Kapil and Mudassar faced off in a total of 18 Test matches from 1978-1984 out of which Dev accounted for him 12 times with an astounding success rate of 0.66.
Kapil even dismissed David Gower 10 times, in his career.
3 Ishant Sharma v Alastair Cook (Eng)
Sharma’s nagging full length outside the off-stump accounted for Cook eight times in ten Test matches with a success rate of 0.8. One of the most memorable dismissals of Cook was in the famous Lord’s Test of 2014 where Sharma played on Cook’s patience around the fourth stump, inducing an edge in the process. India went to win the match and Cook’s dismissal at the fag end of the day was one of the key turning points of that game.
4 Zaheer Khan v Graeme Smith (SA)
Being a traditional left-arm bowler, Khan’s strength lied in taking the ball away from the left-handed batsmen. One player to face the wrath of Khan was SA’s Captain Graeme Smith.
Smith often struggled against both the in swingers as well as the out swingers delivered by Zaheer with the majority of his dismissals being bowled, LBW or caught behind the wicket. Zaheer accounted for Smith seven times in fifteen Tests with a success rate of 0.466, making him his bunny in the process.
Harbhajan Singh v Ricky Ponting (Aus) –Harbhajan has had a irritable relationship with Ponting since the two clashed during an ODI at Sharjah in 1998, and Ponting has struggled more against Harbhajan than any other bowler, being dismissed 10 times by him in Tests. On Australia’s 2000-01 tour he had a famous disastrous run against the of spinner, registering scores of 0, 0, 6, 0 and 11. When Harbhajan was asked in January 2007 what he had over the batsman, he quipped: ‘He hasn’t batted long enough against me, so I don’t know’. A century in Bangalore in 2008 some redemption, but Ponting’s record in India is the one area of mediocrity in an otherwise sparkling career, in 12 Tests in India he has an aggregate of 438 runs and at an average of 20.85, all thanks to Harbhajan Singh.
There are many more such instances in the world cricket, but in this blog I have covered Indian bowlers and their bunnies.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
8th December 2021