India’s cricket history has been based on rhetoric as much as it has been based on nostalgia. Every generation of cricketers is compared with the era gone by, and Indians have had divided opinions about how one newbie has or hasn’t been able to fill in the shoes of a legend who left behind a legacy to be carried.
Soliloquies have been sung as well as effigies have been burnt, and a common Indian cricket fan, drunk on the memories of the past, wants to continuously dwell in it without realizing the fact that the very essence of any sport is, change.
Teams change and so do cricketers, and the ardent followers of the game have to realize that their expectations have to change too and that they have to be patient with the side they support and let it transform.
The history: India’s dominance against spin bowling
It is on the lines of this method of thinking that a contentious issue has evolved and has got everyone talking, not because it wasn’t prevalent earlier, but because the change this time around has been so drastic that India’s perceived strength at one point of time has now become their eventual weakness.
It wasn’t that the Indian batsmen did not give wickets to spinners earlier. It was just that India had a certain core of batsmen who knew how to tackle spin effectively in challenging conditions.
Muttiah Muralitharan has his career-best ODI figures of 7/30 against India and of the top 8 Test playing nations that he has played against, he has his second most number of ODI as well as Test wickets against India.
However, the Lankan legend’s bowling average is not very impressive against his neighboring country. His Test bowling average of 32.61 against India is his second worst after Australia, against whom he averages 36.06.
Moving on to his leg-spinning counterpart, Shane Warne’s records against India indicate that the Indian batting core had dominated world’s greatest leg-spinner, as he took the least number of wickets in both Tests (43 at 47.18) and ODIs (15 at 56.26), with the worst averages, against India amongst all the Test teams he played against.
Even Daniel Vettori has a Test bowling average of 48.42 and an ODI average of 38.18 against India. With these records of the top three non-Indian spinners, in terms of wickets taken in Tests, it is abundantly clear that India have been able to effectively tackle spin bowling.
However, blatantly stating that India have been invincible against spin bowling would be vehemently wrong, unlike what a large chunk of Indian diaspora had themselves believing. Playing spin bowling effectively doesn’t only mean not getting out to it, but also not allowing the spinners to affect the manner you play.
Good players of spin, in essence, do not allow the spinners to build pressure, especially in Test matches, and they do so with proper technique- in playing as late as possible, and as close to the body as possible- and by rotating the strike continuously.
However, it doesn’t mean that they cannot get out to them. Unplayable deliveries are always there, lapses in concentration are always there, and moreover, getting dismissed- be it to a fast bowler or to a spinner- is a part of the game.
The inevitable change since 2012
But, if there comes a situation wherein the batsmen play false shots, miss straight balls, or try to hit themselves out of a spinners grip hold, then there is a problem. The fact that it is happening, and it is happening in a country with a rich batting fraternity, is the thing that’s hurting everyone.
The inevitable change first appeared on the scene in 2012, when after drubbing the Indians 4-0 on their home turf, England visited India for a 4-match Test series.
Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, two of the best players of spin bowling in the history of the game had retired, and Sachin Tendulkar along with Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, and MS Dhoni were carrying the mantle in terms of experience.
Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli et al were at the beginning of their Test careers, and unfortunately, both the amateurs and the professionals faltered in this series, that resulted in the English winning back-to-back Test series against India, both at home and away.
Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar were the wreckers-in-chief in that series and returned with 20 and 17 wickets from 4 Test matches that included 3 five wickets hauls between them.
The lack of adaptability to the change in conditions from domestic cricket to international cricket was something that caused this debacle as far as the young Indian brigade was concerned.
After a brilliant double century in the first game at Ahmedabad and a hundred in the first innings in Mumbai, Pujara failed to adjust to the turning surfaces offered at the Wankhede as well as in Kolkata in the next Test, and so did Kohli. Kohli scored a ton in the 4th Test in Nagpur, but it was too late by then, as England had taken an unassailable lead in the series.
That series was the first jitter in a series of hiccups that India were to face in the coming years, especially post 2013, after the retirement of the last of fabled batting pantheon, Tendulkar.
Spin trouble down under
The horrific Australian tour of 2011-12 wherein India were whitewashed for the second time, in the space of six months was at the back of every Indian’s mind.
The line-up bore a fresh look than what it was in the previous tour with the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Murali Vijay and Rohit Sharma coming into the line-up and playing their maiden Test series down under.
While pace was expected to be India's nemesis, with the likes of Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Starc leading the Australian bowling attack, what came as a surprise, especially on abrasive Australian surfaces was Nathan Lyon’s exploits.
Lyon burst onto the scenes with a 12-wicket haul in the first Test in Adelaide wherein the Indian batsmen gave their wickets away by trying to hit the spinner out of the park, identifying him as the weakest link in the attack.
Again, some irresponsible stroke play and lack of proper technique was what cost India the first Test, and took the glory away from Virat Kohli’s heroic twin hundreds. In the second innings of the second Test at the Gabba, Brisbane, the Indian batting faltered thereby giving Australia an unassailable lead in the tournament.
The Test matches mentioned above were played against sides not known conventionally for their spinners as much as they are known for their fast bowlers. Hence, it wasn’t just a case of quality spin bowling getting the better of the Indian batting.
Frailties exposed at home
If those were some indications to go by, the series back in the subcontinent against Sri Lanka and South Africa in 2015 were indications of the fact that the Indians were now getting stuck in a web that they previously used to knit for their opponents.
Although India won both the series, but that must not take the sheen away from batsmen’s incapability to read the line of the delivery, to read the variations, play the ball as late as possible, and playing close to the body.
In the first Test against Sri Lanka at Galle in August, Tharindu Kaushal and Rangana Herath combined to snatch a victory for a dilapidated Lankan team from the jaws of defeat.
Kaushal picked up a 5-wicket haul in the first innings, two of which included Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane missing the line of the delivery and getting trapped before the stumps, while Herath ran through the Indian batting in the second innings, picking up 7 wickets after an inspired hundred by Dinesh Chandimal had given Sri Lanka a lead of 176 runs.
The Indians looked confused on the pitch, and were either failing to read the variations coming out of Herath’s hands, or were just trying to bail themselves out of trouble by attacking the spinner, but with lackadaisical foot movement and no timing.
The veteran ended up with 15 wickets from 3 matches while his younger teammate Kaushal grabbed 13 wickets.
It was the counter-attack with the ball by the Indian spin trio of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Amit Mishra, and a few magical spells of aggressive fast bowling by Ishant Sharma, along with the timely hundreds by Kohli, Rahane, Pujara and KL Rahul that helped India win the series.
Back in India, in the much-maligned-for-no-reason series against the Proteas, the Indian top order was again seen dancing to the tunes of not just the spinners- Imran Tahir and Simon Harmer- but also of the part-timers in Dean Elgar.
Cheteshwar Pujara’s dismissals in the first and the third Tests in Mohali and Nagpur were good examples of this, as he played down the wrong line and either got bowled or was trapped leg-before-wicket.
Only two centuries were scored throughout the series- both by Rahane in the 4th Test- and there were just 4 fifties by Indian batsmen in 4 Tests. Until the 3rd Test, the highest Indian team total in the series was 215 and 34 out of the 55 Indian wickets that fell in the 3 Tests that had results were taken by spinners.
Effects in the World T20 2016
Over four years, since the departure of the famed Indian batting core, the ability of the next generation of Indian batters to play the turning ball stood exposed. Seemingly, India did not learn their lessons from that, and it cost them the tournament opener against New Zealand in the ICC World T20 2016.
Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi and Nathan McCullum exploited the spin-friendly conditions in Nagpur and the Indians were beaten by the flight and the turn that the deliveries garnered, resulting in a humiliating loss to the Kiwis after being bowled out for 79.
Thankfully, some patient, persistent and classy batting display by Virat Kohli in the next three games helped the hosts qualify for the semi-final, but should India and New Zealand meet again in the final on April 3 at the Eden Gardens, the recurrence of the aforementioned event cannot be denied.
There have been improvements, though, much of which could be attributed to the World T20. Challenging conditions in terms of surfaces have been presented to the players, and although Kohli has been the only guy to have emerged out victorious, consistent tests being put into practice in the upcoming plethora of Test matches that India are scheduled tom play at home (against New Zealand (3), against England (5), and against Australia (4)) might help.
It remains to be seen, however, as to how quickly the Indian batsmen adjust to the change and accept that they are not as good as they used to be as a team against spin bowling. Acceptance of the flaw is the first step towards rectifying it, and the process might as well begin now.
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