Hitting the right areas

On the surface, "bowling in the right areas" seems the blandest cliché bowlers utter. Ask a batsman about the most difficult kind of bowling, though, and the reply will likely be the same. This was Rohit Sharma's response when asked about the bowler who worked him out on the first morning of the Ranji game against Delhi at the Wankhede Stadium: "He was perfect, hitting the right areas, which made me think."

The bowler in question is Pradeep Sangwan, Delhi's 17-year-old left-arm seamer who has had a promising start to his debut first-class season. Sangwan had sensed Sharma's unease at transferring his weight back, so he bowled some short deliveries before going for his trademark inswinger. Sharma was too late to move forward and was trapped, just rewards for the pressure Sangwan had exerted from the time he took the new ball.

Thirteen wickets in under three matches is just returns for the kind of pressure he has managed to maintain - and a creditable feat given the pressure he has withstood. Sangwan is playing at a time when Delhi, with Ashish Nehra vulnerable to injury and Amit Bhandari nearing retirement, are in desperate need of an able partner for Ishant Sharma, their highest wicket-taker last season.

The first time Sangwan played for Delhi, he was thrown the new ball after Delhi had been bowled out for 119. "Under pressure to perform", he responded with three wickets to help bowl Rajasthan out for 85.

Sangwan likes to think the batsmen out. "I try to grasp their weak points," he says, sitting near the fence and watching Virender Sehwag bat against Mumbai. There's a close kinship here; they both come from the Delhi suburb of Najafgarh, and Sehwag had a hand in Sangwan's emergence in the big time.

When Delhi were struggling for a pace bowler, Sangwan was beating Sehwag's bat at the Vikaspuri Coaching Centre in west Delhi. "I know his [Sehwag's] liking for the cut shot, so I worked on getting the ball in at a good pace," says Sangwan with a heavy Haryanvi accent. Sehwag saw a solution to Delhi's pace problems and, after he had a word with the state selectors last year, Sangwan made his first appearance during the Ranji Trophy one-dayers. Seven wickets in the two games he played was a good enough audition for the new-ball role.

Then followed a spot on India's Under-19 tour of Sri Lanka in July, where Sangwan showed his batting prowess down the order. He played a few cameos, including a vital 'Test' half-century scored in partnership with Delhi teammate Virat Kohli, which helped India win the match.

A place in the Delhi Ranji side was round the corner. Vijay Dahiya, Delhi's captain last year and current coach, had hinted at a younger side this year. "Sangwan has been bowling well on the Delhi circuit where fast bowlers have to deliver on paata (flat) tracks. He is a workhorse who never gives up."

Sangwan's progress is another feather in the cap of the MRF Pace Foundation. TA Sekhar, MRF's head coach, believes Sangwan is the best under-19 left-arm pace bowler in India. "I told people to watch out for this fellow," says Sekhar, who first saw Sangwan two years ago and fine-tuned his action. He says Sangwan, who now has a "perfect side-arm action", had something known as past side-arm action where he was twisting his shoulder to get the ball in. Earlier this September, Sekhar accompanied Sangwan to England where the biomechanics experts worked on him at the Loughborough centre.

Sangwan has the natural ability to swing the ball into the right-hander, something he says he's still working on in consultation with Manoj Prabhakar, Delhi's bowling coach. "He has worked a lot on my stock ball, the in-swing, where he has got my leading hand to hold tight and then align it with my bowling arm, which helps me get the inswinger as accurate as possible."

Prabhakar has also narrowed the angle at which he would run in. "That has worked wonders as now I can maintain the control, which is very necessary in first-class cricket where top batsman can hold on for long," says Sangwan.

Dahiya believes Sangwan has handled the pressure well so far, but the tougher test will come once the ball gets old and the set batsmen make him toil hard on unresponsive wickets. So far, Delhi have bowled out the opposition cheaply and Dahiya's words provide a prelude to what will surely follow: "First-class cricket is not about the first spell. The longer the game goes on the more the demands on the fast bowler."