Former Australian fast bowler Jeff Thomson (L) speaks to Mumbai’s Shardul Thakur during a training session at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. (AFP)

Mumbai: Australian great Thomson urges India to change attitude Australian cricket great Jeff Thomson says India must change its attitude if it wants to produce top-class fast bowlers.
Thomson, considered by many to be the quickest bowler of all time, told AFP that aspiring Indian pacemen should stop playing second fiddle to the country’s spinners.  “It’s a matter of attitude really on the field by the bowlers and the captain,” he said in Mumbai, at the end of a month-long coaching stint.
“Captains use some of the fast bowlers to scuff the ball up so the spinners can come on. You’ve got to get them out of that mentality and trust in the fast bowlers,” he said.
India has long produced an array of dazzling spinners like Anil Kumble, Bishan Bedi and Erapalli Prasanna, as well as batting greats like Sachin Tendulkar, but has struggled to produce fast bowlers.  
Kapil Dev, once the leading wicket-taker in Tests, and Javagal Srinath, were rare exceptions.
Thomson, 65, said India’s dry pitches, which “wreck” the ball, had also been a contributing factor and added that more attention should be given to young players’ diets. “A lot of the Indian kids are a bit slight, that comes back to diet and that sort of thing which is always awkward. So they probably lack a bit of strength that way, so you’ve got to bulk them up a bit,” he said.
Thomson also spoke out about modern-day batsmen, saying all teams, including Australia’s, were being affected by the amount of Twenty20 and one-day internationals played these days.
“I think they’re a bit influenced by the shorter forms of the game,” he said of batsmen. “When they get into a Test match the mentality is still a short-form game where they get on with it, they try to attack bowlers and if it doesn’t work they get out and they don’t seem too worried about it. They don’t seem to have a lot of patience these days.”