'Current pacers better prepared than we were'

NEW DELHI, November 24: Subroto Bannerjee, the former Indian fast bowler, has a penchant for everything Australian, it seems, to the casual observer. He has, from the professional to the personal, shared a soul-deep connection with Down Under.
Bannerjee made his debut along with Shane Warne in the only Test that he played against Australia in Sydney 91-92, picking up three wickets, those of Mark Waugh, Mark Taylor and Geoff Marsh.Out of six ODIs that he has played, four have been in Australia.
He also held the dubious record of bowling the most expensive six-over spell (41) by an Indian against Australia. He is settled right now in Sydney - where he represents and coaches (under the main coach Graham Thorpe) the Sydney Club - with his wife, who is an Indian but has grown up in Australia. So when he came down to Kotla, TOI thought it opportune to ask him about, what else, Australia.
Remarking about the future tour of Australia, Bannerjee said, "The current Indian team has a very good bowling line-up. So they will do well when they go to Australia. They are going to be more effective than when we went. Manoj Prabhakar and Kapil Dev might have performed brilliantly individually but we couldn’t perform as a team during that 1991-92 tour because Javagal Srinath and myself were inexperienced when we went there. We were not able to support the seniors properly. But this crop of fast bowlers wouldn’t have the same problem as us because these guys have played a lot of international cricket."
Bannerjee, who has been involved with the Australian way of cricket since 2003 (the time he migrated to Australia) said that Australians are better prepared when they burst onto the international scene because of their coaching in formative years.
"There is a batting, bowling, fielding coach even at a club level in Australia. So they don’t feel out of place when they reach the higher level. Nothing is new for them. They just know a lot by then as opposed to other countries," stated the 38-year-old Bannerjee.
The lack of support staff and opportunity "in his days" was cited as the reason by Bannerjee for his unfulfilling career. "At 33, I realised that I couldn’t play for the country anymore. There was nothing left for me to do in India hence I decided to go to Australia and play as well coach there."