Don't want Varun Aaron, Umesh Yadav to sacrifice pace: Bharat Arun

It is often believed that fiery quick bowlers are erratic. Some of the coaches may not mind them going wayward as long as the express bowlers do the job of jolting the opposition.

India's bowling coach Bharat Arun believed that India's two express bowlers Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav are capable of being accurate and at the same time quick.

Speaking to the media in Colombo ahead of their practice session on the eve of their warm-up game against Sri Lanka Board President's XI on Wednesday, Arun said: "Yes, it is a wrong concept sometimes that people who bowl fast are generally erratic. As you get more and more efficient in your action and your thought process, you can be fast and accurate like many of the other bowlers in the world have proved. The challenge for these two would be to not compromise on their speed but get a lot more accurate. I definitely don't want the two to sacrifice pace."

Arun was pretty pleased that medium-pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar has "rediscovered himself" on the limited-overs tour of Zimbabwe last month while the experienced Ishant Sharma is "pretty consistent of late".

"We have a couple of guys who can clock 145-plus on a consistent basis and also the fact that we have Ishant (Sharma) who is pretty experienced. He can extract extra bounce off the wicket and of late, Ishant has been extremely consistent. That's a very, very encouraging fact," Arun said about his fast bowling group.

"Bhuvi has had a wonderful tour in Zimbabwe where he has rediscovered himself; he is moving the ball pretty well both ways. So we do have the variety in somebody who can move the ball and seam the ball and someone who can extract that extra bounce and a couple of bowlers who can clock 145-plus. That gives us enough variety to battle any conditions."

Talking more about Bhuvi, who had faltered along the way last year as wickets weren't coming, Arun said: "The ball that he could bring back in (to the right-hand batsman), he was having trouble with that. It was just a question of the release point. He worked pretty hard on that and that made a huge difference, the fact that he could bring the ball back in like he used to earlier. That made him a lot more potent."

Arun only backed captain Virat Kohli's theory of playing five bowlers in order to win Test matches. "If you look at world cricket, any Test team that dominated always had five bowlers. Probably if we get an all-rounder, preferably a batting all-rounder, it would be very very beneficial for the side.

"Both Ashwin and Harbhajan have two Test centuries each and Bhuvi is more than capable with the bat. Our lower-order needs to live up to this challenge," Arun said.

Looking ahead of the Test series as India look to break the drought of not having won a series there in a long time, Arun said: "I don't look at too much of what happened in the past. The conditions are pretty similar to that in our country and I believe we have variety in our batting and bowling to adapt to these conditions. The challenge would be to do it as fast as possible to get the best results."

Only four of the Indian Test travelling party – Murali Vijay, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma and Amit Mishra – have the experience of playing in Sri Lanka in the longer format before. Arun did not see any problem with that. "It was the same scenario when we went to Australia. There were a lot of players playing for the first time in Australia. But in all four Tests, we put up 400 runs in the first innings. Not many teams have done that in Australia. It all depends on mentality, how quickly we can overcome shortcomings.

"This team is pretty experienced and have done well over last one year. They should come really good in this series."

He also gave little importance to the pitch conditions that are similar to those in India. "It is very difficult to speculate unless we get there and inspect the conditions. In the series against Pakistan, the wickets were spinner-friendly. Unless we have a look at the wicket, it is difficult to say. But we are pretty well equipped to deal with any conditions.

"The question is about accepting things as they are, achieve what we want to achieve. It is all about collectively doing well. It is a challenge for us and we will take that head on."

Arun also felt that it was a wonderful opportunity for his players to get into the "match atmosphere" in the only warm-up game before the first Test starting in Galle on August 12. "There is no greater preparation than playing a match," said the former India Test bowler.