Indian bowlers were clueless at SSC

The Indian bowling attack not only lacked penetration yesterday but ideas as well What is bowling coach Eric Simmons doing could be a fair questionDown in Galle Tharanga Paranavithana having survived the Lahore terrorist attack 17 months earlier pulled together an emotionalcharged maiden Test century A week later to show that it wasnt an adrenalinepumping fluke he wrote a similar script Harbhajan Singh bowled defensively and went wicketless in 22 overs on the first day of the second Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club Colombo yesterday PICAFP Tight disciplined and effective batting on a pitch that was dry with some bounce but later became twopaced enabled him to bat his way through some occasional tricky patches It helped Sri Lanka with Kumar Sangakkara adding his second century of the series to reach 312 for two wickets at the end of Day One of this second TestAll of which suggests how Indias bowling is about as effective as firing a water pistol at a raging brush fire It is becoming all too predictableu00a0 It is also woefully short of international level Indias bowlers are struggling to find a length they lack penetration and it makes anyone wonder where the next dynamic newball bowler is hiding This is simply not good enough for a side that is allegedly No1 in the ICC Test rankings and are about to surrender the lead to Sri Lanka which itself is questionable not having won a Test series in Sri Lanka Australia or South Africa With Harbhajan Singh the only senior bowler in the ranks on this tour it also begs the second question This is what is bowling coach Eric Simons doing to correct the imbalance What is he doing to improve Indias chances in a series that is fast becoming an embarrassment for the tourists if they cannot put a competitive bowling attack on the field It not only lacks penetration but ideas as well Last week Gary Kirsten spoke at length about trying to find the next Kapil Dev and Manoj Prabhakar On this tour he has a rookie and a young man who is battling with length as well as the ability to put pressure on the Sri Lankans Debutant Suresh Raina suggested India were bowling to a plan what bowling plan is hard to fathom as there were times the spinners were in a holding position defensive and Harbhajan bowling negatively to frustrate the batsmen This ploy didnt work at all At least Abhimanyu Mithun tested Paranavithana a few times in the prelunch session Forcing the batsmen into driving at the ball aiming to thrash it through the covers or fashion an offdrive failing to make contact There were some tantalisingly close edges too It is where the bowler should now know where to bowl at players such as Paranavithana and SangakkaraIt was Mithun who forced Sangakkara into a rare error when forcing him into executing a cut he edged and just eluded a diving Rahul Dravid At the time the Sri Lanka captain was 94 and anxious for that 23rd Test centuryLuck though has not been on Indias side with Gautam Gambhir knee and Yuvraj Singh virus allowing Suresh Raina who has played a record 98 ODIs to at last make Test debut He displayed confidence too when fronting up to the media at the postmatch conference with the view that not all is lostAs I see it we will not be under pressure even if they put a big total on the board he said We also have good batsmen There will be three days and anything can happen especially if there is a good partnership We have players who have done well everywhere