Cricket is a game of glorious ironies. For years we prayed for a fast bowler, or at least a fast-medium bowler. And then came Kapil Dev. That led to a host of new ball bowlers, at least two of whom, Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan were world class. India often went into Test matches with three medium pacers and a spinner, even at home.
And now the prayer has changed. We pray for spinners. Indian batsmen's struggle against spin in Galle cost them a Test match, just as it had cost them a series at home and in England recently and at least one Test in Australia.
Where are those capable of standing alongside the Great Four of the 70s, and Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh of a later vintage? Of India’s 15 most successful bowlers, 11 are spinners.
The problem of not having bowlers of pace was that our batsmen lacked expertise against fast bowling. Under Tiger Pataudi, left-arm spinner Bishan Bedi would be preparing to bowl as early as the third over of the innings. The ball was studiously rolled along the ground, and players were encouraged to rub it on the turf to remove the shine.
Intelligence and cunning Fast bowling was for meat-eating giants from abroad who didn’t know better, we consoled ourselves; our strengths were intelligence and cunning, the ball that never arrived and the one that wasn’t there when the batsman jumped out to meet it.
India had so many world class spinners in the domestic game then that half a dozen of them might have had fabulous international careers had they turned out for other teams. We took it all for granted. The cliché grew easily: India, the land of snake charmers and spin bowling.
And then, we switched tracks. Rather than build on our strength, we chose to imitate others’ forte. We decided to put our faith in pace. Thus, over a period we developed bowlers capable of touching 140km per hour, some capable of swinging the ball, others who bowled military medium; consistency was a worry as were regular injuries.
Still, it worked till a few years ago because the great Anil Kumble and the then unspoilt (bowling-wise) Harbhajan were still around.
Just like the paucity of fast bowling then meant we lacked batsmen who could play pace, the scarcity of quality spinners now means we lack batsmen who are comfortable against spin. In the past, some of the finest players of spin were not even major Test stars — men like Ramesh Saxena, Brijesh Patel, Ashok Malhotra — but nearly all Test batsmen were excellent players of spin. This was a symbiotic relationship: spinners gave rise to batsmen who played spin well enough for the spinners to hone their skills to a higher pitch.
Ignoring domestic cricket This relationship doesn’t exist today because India’s top players hardly play domestic cricket. This has been the case for at least a quarter of a century now. Our most successful batsman, Sachin Tendulkar, for example, never faced the most successful bowler, Kumble in the Ranji Trophy.
Most countries treat their domestic first class cricket as sacrosanct. Indian players are cavalier because, increasingly, there seem to be other avenues to make it to the national squad. The IPL — four overs for the bowlers, four strokes for the batsmen — often seems to suffice. When England toured India a few years ago, Mahendra Singh Dhoni was criticised for saying publicly what most Indian captains always said privately to curators: give me a spinner’s wicket. As it happened, Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar, the visiting spinners, with 37 wickets between them, led England to their first series win in India in 28 years.
Play to your strengths Australia don’t prepare spinning tracks, neither do England, whose captain Alistair Cook specifically asked for seaming ‘English’ tracks before the Ashes series. The last great South African spinner was probably Hugh Tayfield, who finished his career in 1960 with 170 wickets. Pace works for them, thank you.
The message is clear: play to your strengths.
Admittedly, India are in transition. Ashwin seems to have thrown out some of the less effective tools from his bag of tricks and emerged as a top class bowler. But Harbhajan either needs more time or less indulgence by the selectors. Where are the young spinners? Most of the successful ones, from Bhagwat Chandrasekhar to Harbhajan himself broke into the national team in their teens.
India needs to go back to the future — encourage spinners, pick them early and give them a long run.
This does not mean, of course, that it has to be spin and nothing else and a return to the days of a wicketkeeper opening the bowling (as Budhi Kunderan did in England). The balance, however, should be tilted in favour of spin, because there is something to be said for tradition.
