Stats: India opening the bowling with two spinners in a Test innings

Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha have opened the bowling for captain Dhoni four times

In the third innings of the Galle Test against Sri Lanka, the Indian skipper Virat Kohli introduced spinners from both ends to open the bowling. Ravichandran Ashwin (off-spinner) and Amit Mishra (leg-spinner) opened the bowling for India.

It is sometimes seen that one of the opening bowlers is a spinner with a pace bowler operating from the other end. But opening the bowling with two spinners is not seen often.

It is only the 11th time India opened the bowling with spinners from both the ends in a Test innings. Nine of those instances have come in this century (since 2000) and the last was against Australia at Chennai in 2012/13 where Ravichandran Ashwin and Harbhajan Singh opened the bowling, on directions of skipper MS Dhoni.

The last time this happened in a match involving any team was during the Bangladesh vs Zimbabwe match at Khulna in November 2014. The spinners were Taijul Islam and Shakib Al Hasan. The table below lists the 11 instances of India opening the bowling with two spinners.

India opening the bowling with 2 spinners

Spinners	Captain	Inning	Opposition	Venue	Season	Result
Ghulam Ahmed & Vinoo Mankad	Vijay Hazare	4	England	Kanpur	1951/52	Lost
ML Jaisimha & Salim Durani	MAK Pataudi	1	England	Kanpur	1963/64	Drawn
Sachin Tendulkar & Harbhajan Singh	Sourav Ganguly	4	West Indies	Bridgetown	2002	Lost
Anil Kumble & Virender Sehwag	Anil Kumble	4	Australia	Delhi	2008/09	Drawn
Harbhajan Singh & Pragyan Ojha	MS Dhoni	3	Sri Lanka	Mumbai (BS)	2009/10	Won
Pragyan Ojha & Ravichandran Ashwin	MS Dhoni	3	West Indies	Delhi	2011/12	Won
Ravichandran Ashwin & Pragyan Ojha	MS Dhoni	2	England	Mumbai (WS)	2012/13	Lost
Ravichandran Ashwin & Pragyan Ojha	MS Dhoni	4	England	Mumbai (WS)	2012/13	Lost
Ravichandran Ashwin & Pragyan Ojha	MS Dhoni	4	England	Eden Gardens	2012/13	Lost
Ravichandran Ashwin & Harbhajan Singh	MS Dhoni	3	Australia	Chennai	2012/13	Won
Ravichandran Ashwin & Amit Mishra	Virat Kohli	3	Sri Lanka	Galle	2015	Lost

Of the 11 instances, five have come in the fourth innings of a Test.

MAK Pataudi is the only Indian captain to begin a Test match with two spinners from both ends in the first innings.

MS Dhoni introduced spinners from both ends in both innings of the Wankhede Test against England in 2012/13.

Out of the 11 instances, only three times India went on to win those Tests.

Only two instances from 1932 to 2000 and nine since 2000.

MS Dhoni has done it six times from 2009/10 to 2012/13.

Overall, 31 times teams have opened the bowling with two spinners in a Test match, including 11 by India. Let’s see how many times have other teams have done the same.

No. of times each team opened bowling with two spinner

Team	Number of times
England	11
India	11
Australia	3
Sri Lanka	2
Bangladesh	1
Pakistan	1
South Africa	1
West Indies	1
New Zealand	0
Zimbabwe	0

First three bowlers all being spinners – Six times for India, the first three bowlers to bowl in an innings were all spinners. In the Galle Test also, after Ashwin and Mishra, it was Harbhajan who bowled. Overall 10 times, the first three bowlers have been all spinners.

Apart from India doing it six times, Sri Lanka did it twice and England and Bangladesh once.

First four or more bowlers all being spinners – Only once in the history of Test matches, the first four or more bowlers who bowled in a Test innings were all spinners. It was by India against England at Kanpur in 1963/64 when the skipper was MAK Pataudi and the first six bowlers were all spinners – ML Jaisimha, Salim Durani, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Baloo Gupte, Chandu Borde and Bapu Nadkarni.

Only the seventh bowler was a pacer – the captain MAK Pataudi himself. There was no genuine pace bowler for India in the match!