For some time now, cricket coaches worldwide have been obsessed with tall fast bowlers. England, for instance, has James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Chris Tremlet, Tim Bresnan, Graham Onions, Jade Dernbach, Steve Finn and Ben Stokes, all over 6’4” tall. Three of them, Tremlet, Finn and Onions tower over the rest at an impressive height of 6’7”.

The theory is that these tall bowlers would be able to coax bounce and pace out of even the most docile of pitches. On the other, more responsive pitches, their ability to deliver the cricket ball from a great height would promote awkward bounce and test the best of batsmen. And going by the series against India, this ploy seems to have worked.

Indian bowlers, by contrast, are noticeably shorter. None more so than Vinay Kumar. Praveen Kumar too is of only average height. Both also lack in pace and therefore have to bring other skills to the table. Ishant Sharma is taller and pacier and when he hits the right spots, he can be a bother for the best of batsmen. The same though cannot be said of Munaf Patel, the other tall fast bowler.

At one time, Munaf was pacy. But he soon gave up pace and concentrated on length and line. On flat tracks when he is unable to reverse swing the ball he gets hit with disdain. The other fast bowler, S Sreesanth, could be a handful, except that he seldom gets his act together.

But height is not the only mantra that the fast bowlers need, as has been proved repeatedly in the history of the game. Some of the finest or fiercest fast bowlers — Malcolm Marshall, Dale Steyn, Lasith Malinga or even Shoaib Akhtar — were not as tall as their colleagues. But these bowlers of express pace could strike fear in the hearts of batsmen.

Marshall, in fact, was the most successful of the West Indian fast bowling greats and Steyn is already a legend in his lifetime.The point to be made here is that Indian coaches discourage young fast bowlers from going flat out. They ask them to concentrate on length and line instead. This is a great mistake and kills the prospect of any fast bowler at grass root level itself.

Any bowler can bowl length and line after a lot of nets and hard work. But not all the hard work can help him bowl at express speed. The ability to bowl at express speed is a rare gift and coaches need to encourage bowlers to go flat out and find their maximum speed. They should be advised not to bother about line and length at that stage. They would pick up these traits with experience.

Another point is that coaches at a very early stage decide that a youngster is too short to pursue fast bowling and coax him to try his hand at spin or some other department of the game. This too is an error. Some grow tall only in their late teens but by then wrong advice would have done its damage. Even otherwise, the success of relatively shorter fast bowlers like Steyn and Marshall should be an eye-opener for our neighbourhood coaches.

Actually, too much damage is being done by excessive coaching and wrong advice in the formative years of a young cricketer. The Board needs to formulate a policy of how coaching at the grassroots level could be more organised and beneficial to the system. That may be one way to encourage fast bowling at a young age.