Cricket: India seems to have forgotten the art of spin bowling

 WHY CAN’T THE Indians play spin? What is the issue? Why is it that in home conditions, the opponent scores 500 and then the Indians capitulate for 200? How important was the toss, and how much did the pitch change? Why can’t the batters do the basics right? Is Indian red-ball cricket, which was on a real high post England, in crisis?

I think it all boils down to the way India’s domestic cricket is structured at the moment. In our obsession to master fast bowling, produce fast bowlers and also bat well against fast bowlers on seaming tracks, we have produced wickets in domestic cricket that make medium pacers look good. With time, spinners have been looked down upon and we have stopped producing conventional cricket wickets where spinners come into play as the match progresses. Fast bowlers are the ones that have currency. Spinners are taken for granted. Our batters train against fast bowling and they are motivated to do well in England, Australia and South Africa. In the process, they have stopped training against quality spin. Batting against spin is a disappearing art. The results are proof that we don’t have the ability anymore.

India and the ability to play spin went hand-in-hand. It was natural that Indian batters would do well in home conditions and negotiate the turning ball. In the 1990s, Azharuddin and Ajit Wadekar forged a winning formula purely on this basis. Get the opponent on turners and roll them over. India’s spinners would do well and then the batters would score big against the opponent’s spinners setting the game up. In the last few years, the formula has changed. We don’t produce quality spinners anymore since all want to excel in white-ball cricket.

Former Chairman of Selectors MSK Prasad narrated an intriguing story when we last spoke. “When I ask young cricketers what do they want to become, almost everyone says I want to play the IPL. Few say they want to play Test cricket. In change rooms, the talk is always about not conceding runs. Few are concerned about flighting the ball and beating the batter in the air. Things have changed and the impact is visible,” he said.

Prasad is right. We prioritise our white-ball cricket for that’s where the money is. We prioritise playing against fast bowling for that’s where the glamour is. Playing spin is considered par for the course and is taken for granted.

Going forward, we must make a few changes to our existing template. We are doing extremely well in T20 cricket since we have specialists doing the job. These players specialise in the white-ball game and they have now learnt the format well enough to dominate. Yet, when it comes to red-ball cricket, we don’t use specialists.

We have moved away from the formula and have started to rely on all-rounders, which is a defensive move of sorts. The Nitish Reddy case is a good example. While not taking anything away from him, he isn’t the bowler who can regularly pick you wickets in home Tests. And yet, he is preferred over a specialist batter. Nitish isn’t close to Hardik Pandya and it is a reality we need to accept.

India will not play Tests for the next eight months. All of this will soon be water under the bridge as we move into the white-ball season. And yet, we must learn our lessons. To lose multiple series at home isn’t the best result and we need correctives sooner than later. The first is to make sure that our players play on turners at home and get back their mojo against spin bowling. That’s our strength, rather was, and we need to get it back. It is not one or the other. It is one and the other. Playing fast bowling well doesn’t mean we neglect the skill against spin bowling—the faster we recognise and introspect, the better it is for our cricket.