although i have not played cricket at the uppermost level, i know a thing or two about it as watching it continiously for 5 hours at a stretch for over 30 years can give any individual an insight if he has a leaning towards it!!!
my reasoning is that good teams always had good fast bowlers in their stable who were also much better physically endowed than us indians....what i mean is that their bowlers are always 6 feet plus in height and strong whereas we have bowlers like shreesanth or agarkar who hardly have any height.....so the ability to bring the ball kick up from a short of a length will always elude our bowlers whereas their bowlers can always bring it up.
a good example of this is nathan bracken....his deliveries are never beyond 135 kmph but still he is a dangerous bowler....also macgrath who was past his prime (actually never was) was bowling at sub 125 kmph but still getting enought wickets with his bounce. also given the fact that they are not more injury prone and their recovery time is much faster than our bowlers.
as they say, to win a match on any day, we have to bowl the opposition out once or twice (considering one day cricket and test matches both) and we cannot win matches because of this sheer inability on part of our bowlers.
as for spinners its not an art anymore with more batsman playing horizontal shots which can have an effect on any great spinner too...now with T20, spinners will be non existent in the days to come...or maybe only spinners who can bowl good yorkers.
hopefully we can have luck on our side to win in mumbai!!!
