Speed Merchants

Vijay Lokapally has written on cricket for over three decades. He is a widely travelled cricket scribe with the distinction of having reported extensively on the game from practically every international venue. Employed with The Hindu, a respected National newspaper since 1986, Lokapally is acknowledged for his insightful views on the game. He covered his first Test in 1981 as a freelancer apart from six limited-over World Cups for The Hindu and Sportstar. His enviable access to cricketers, past and present, gives Lokapally a ring-side view of the game in India. He lives in Delhi with Sunanda, his wife and son Akshay. Gulu Ezekiel (born 1959) is a prolific journalist who has written on a number of sports since 1980 in over 150 publications worldwide including Inside Cricket (Australia), The Times and The Cricketer (UK), Sportstar (India) and numerous dailies and websites apart from appearing on many TV channels and radio stations in India and abroad. Since his first on the World Cup in 1996, Gulu has written best-selling biographies of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Having been sports editor at Asian Age, NDTV and indya.com, Gulu branched out on his own and has been freelancing since 2001. This is his first 12th sports book, his 9th on cricket and first for Bloomsbury.Indian cricket was traditionally known for its spin bowling. All that changed with the advent of the magnificent Kapil Dev in 1978. The floodgates really opened in the new millennium with Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan leading a revolution that today sees India's pace attack as among the best in the world. But how many know that from the late 19th century right till the 1940s it was fast bowlers that shaped the early years of Indian cricket? From Pavri and Bulsara to Nissar and Amar Singh, batsmen from around the world found Indian pace bowling too hot to handle.Much has been written both in books and countless articles on India's rich spin legacy. Now it is time to pay tribute to the men of speed as well. Now veteran cricket writers Gulu Ezekiel and Vijay Lokappaly take you on a fascinating journey of over a century and vividly capture the action, the drama, the triumphs and the heartbreaks of Indian pace bowling from the 1880s to today in this thrilling and gripping saga that is sure to enthrall cricket fans both in India and the rest of the world.