No longer good players of spin bowling
While the result at Southampton was
disappointing, and make no mistake, the Indian cricket team has thrown away two
glorious opportunities to win away series in South Africa and England, what
should be a matter of great concern is the Indian batsmen’s struggle against
Moeen Ali. When you take in to account the fact that India lost a test in Pune
to Australia when they could not handle Steven O’ Keefe, when you take into
account the team’s struggles against Monty Panesar in 2012, when you take into
account that Rangana Herath bowled Sri Lanka to victory and bowled India out in
a test a at Galle in 2015, one aspect becomes abundantly clear- Indian batsmen
are no longer great players of spin bowling.
Indians have always been proud of
the fact that their batsmen were the best players of spin bowling. Spin bowling
has never been a threat for the Indian batsmen. Shane Warne troubled batsman
all over the world but never posed a problem to Indian batsmen- handled with
great confidence and skill on the Australian tours of 98, 2001 and 2004. An odd
test match apart, Murali never worried Indian batsmen either. Saqlain Mushtaq
had a great tour of India in 98 but was ruthless smashed away by Sehwag,
Tendulkar and Company in 2004 at Multan. Spinners never bothered India and
Indian batsmen never lost sleep when confronted with the idea of playing spin
bowling.
Of the previous generation, Virender
Sehwag believed that spin bowlers had no right to bowl at him. Every time a spinner came on to bowl, Sehwag
threw them (literally) out of the attack. What they bowled, what variations
they had, did not matter. VVS Laxman was an outstanding player of spin bowling-
his 281 on a fourth day pitch in a third innings against Warne and company
perhaps the best exhibition on how to bat against quality spin bowling on a
wearing pitch. Use your feet and reach the pitch of the ball and drive. If it
is short, rock back and pull and cut. No sweeps and no reverse sweeps in that
281. Rough or no rough, no left arm spinner ever fancied bowling to Saurav
Ganguly. He was magnificent player of spin bowling, who very often used his
feet and dismissed the ball out of the ground. Sachin Tendulkar’s success
against Warne is well documented and
although he was not as aggressive as his other colleagues, Rahul Dravid’s
decisive footwork against spin bowling , in attack and defence , made him
another wonderful player against the turning ball. Watch Dravid’s hundred
against Kaneria, Afridi and others on a turning wicket at the Eden Garden in
2005. Watch how he and Ganguly chased
down 260 against Murali at Kandy in 2001. Absolute master class those innings
on how to play the turning ball.
It is not difficult to decipher why
the above mentioned players were great players of spin bowling. When all the
above mentioned players were developing as batsman and playing the Ranji trophy
they would pit their skills against some very fine spin bowlers. Anil Kumble was playing for India and would
occasionally turn up but a Ranji Trophy season would very often feature the
likes of Narendra Hirwani, Rajesh Chauhan, Venkatpathy Raju, Sunil Joshi, Sairaj
Bahutule, Nilesh Kulkarni, Bharti Vij, Santosh Jedhe and Kanwaljeet Singh- all
playing for different team and all fine exponents of the art of spin bowling.
There were no regulations stipulating minimum grass cover on wickets and hence
Dravid, Laxman, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Sehwag and others of their generations
developed their game playing against quality spin bowlers on tuning tracks.
Even batsmen of a previous generation grew up playing quality spin bowling. Mohammad
Azharuddin and Sanjay Manjrekar would have played against the likes of
Sivramkrishnan, Maninder Singh, Shivlal Yadav, Venkatramana and Arshad Ayub.
The likes of Gavaskar and Vengsarkar would have anyways played a lot of first
class cricket against Bedi, Prassana and Chandra but even without them a first
class cricketer would have encountered quality spinners in the form of
Shivalkar, Goel, Raghuram Bhat and others during those days. Indian batsmen
played the best of the spin bowlers on the most difficult tracks at home and
hence what was thrown at them at the test level
never bothered them.
Sadly that has changed. India’s
bleak overseas record in the 90’s meant that emphasis was more on developing
techniques against fast bowlers. It also meant that emphasis was more
developing fast bowlers. Quality spin bowlers have disappeared from the circuit
and even the very few who exist, barely play the Ranji trophy. Harbhajan Singh
did not play any international game last year but one did not see him turn up
for Punjab even though he is technically still not retired. Kuldeep Yadav and
Chahal also were barely seen playing the Ranji Trophy. In the nineties one
could mention a leading spin bowler from each state team and more often than
not those spin bowlers were in the national reckoning. Today I am not aware of
spin bowlers of any state side apart from the ones that play from the country.
Hence the latest generation of
Indian batsmen has not had the exposure to spin bowling like their
predecessors. They have not had the exposure to turning tracks like their
predecessors. In fact, many of them have not had the exposure to first class
cricket like many of their predecessors. They have been brought up playing on
hard, good batting wickets where they are encouraged to hit through the line
and on the up with hard hands. No wonder they struggle against spin bowling.
Unless radicle changes are brought about in our first class structure, this
will continue and we will struggle against the likes of Ali, Lyon and
Maharaj. Till these changes are brought
about, let us accept the fact that we are no longer good players of spin
bowling.
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