RP Singh wants to bowl his heart out in England

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It’s ironic, he says, that the man he’s replacing was the very bowler he had formed an iconic partnership with the last time India had been on tour of England.

Huge-billboard size pictures of Zaheer Khan and R.P. Singh, from the 2007 series, are frozen in time at Green Park in Kanpur and at the University ground in Lucknow — “possibly the only two venues that still remember our feat,” R.P. says.

The two left-armers had terrorised England in that series, taking an incredible 30 wickets together in the three-match Test series.

In away Tests in the last decade, it was a record, and not surprisingly Rahul Dravid’s men came back home with a 1-0 series win, the first in England after a hiatus of 21 years.

Given India’s state in the ongoing Test series, M.S. Dhoni would do anything to have that kind of combo at his disposal, but with Zaheer out of the frame, it will be a huge ask for the Uttar Pradesh seamer to land up in England, somehow convince the skipper to pick him in the XI for the next Test.

“That is the goal though,” he says. “Having spent so much time away from the (Indian) team, there’s nothing more I’d like to do than take the next plane to England, go to the nets and bowl my heart out. It’s probably unreasonable to think that I’ll be picked up in the XI, but honestly I’m not thinking about it that much. I just want to go there and bowl.”

R.P. hasn’t played a Test for more than three years though. In fact the last two Tests he played — against South Africa at home — he didn’t manage a single wicket and gave away a lot of runs. He had lost his ability to swing the ball back into the right-hander — his main weapon and the selectors were quick to dump him.

It’s been a slow climb back and in this year’s Indian Premier League, he showed he’s beginning to get the swerve back. In a Kochi Tuskers Kerela’s match against the Mumbai Indians, where bowlers from both sides were buried under a mountain of 366 runs, R.P. gave away just 15 runs in his four overs.

The fact that Sachin Tendulkar scored a 66-ball 100 in that game for MI puts R.P.’s feat in perspective.
There’s little that an IPL game can depict of a bowler’s true form, but R.P. says he’s put in a lot of effort to get his swing back.

“Being dropped was painful, but I knew I had lost my rhythm and swing. Before this season though I started practising with synthetic and wet tennis balls and that has helped me immensely. I know that I will do well in England because the conditions suit my style of bowling.”