Where have all the spinners in India gone?
India’s premier spinner Ashwin has struggled recently
47 years ago, India had registered its first win overseas. It was in New Zealand. Almost half a decade later we’re at same country, but instead of drubbing them we’re getting drubbed.
47 years ago we had quality spinners. In fact, the first test match was to be won due to the heroics of Erapalli Prasanna. 47 years later, we see our ‘first choice’ spinner playing due only due to his batting abilities. Until a couple of years back, we had one of the best spin bowlers in the game. But now?
In the past few years, we’ve never had any spinner playing for a considerable amount of time. Piyush Chawala, Amit Mishra , Pragyan Ojha. They’ve all come and gone. Ashwin has been the only bowler who has consistently played the role of the ‘strike bowler’.
Ravindra Jadeja too has come into the fray but he’s not a person who you would associate as a spinner. The exit of Harbhajan Singh has come at a very bad time as India don’t have any one to support Ashwin is spin friendly conditions. You might argue about Jadeja, Well he isn’t an off spinner per se.
Perhaps we should wait a little while longer. Players like Shahabaz Nadeem and Yuswinder Chahal may come up. But that is going to certainly take time. Until then I guess we should just wait and watch.
Even if you see in the Ranji Trophy, there have been only one spinner each in the top 5 highest wicket takers the past 2 seasons. Unless we get some quality spinners, it’ll be very hard for the Indian team to win at ‘home’ as well.
And as you can see below, there have been only 2 spinners in the whole of the past two seasons to feature in the top 5 bowling charts. Well it’s not a healthy sign for an Indian fan but hey there are a lot of ‘fast bowlers’ who are among the wickets. So we should take that as a positive and hope the best for WC15.
RANJI TROPHY 2012-13
| Bowler | For | M | Wks. | Ave. | SR |
| Ishwar Pandey | MP | 8 | 48 | 21.06 | 43.4 |
| Siddharth Kaul | Punjab | 9 | 44 | 23.79 | 46.0 |
| Suraj Yadav | Services | 10 | 43 | 21.90 | 56.0 |
| Shahabaz Nadeem* | Jharkhand | 9 | 42 | 25.9 | 58.9 |
| Sandeep Sharma | Punjab | 9 | 41 | 19.41 | 43.3 |
RANJI TROPHY 2013-14
| Bowler | For | M | Wks. | Ave. | SR |
| Rishi Dhawan | HP | 8 | 49 | 20.30 | 42.0 |
| Anureet Singh | Railways | 8 | 44 | 17.56 | 47.4 |
| Ashok Dinda | Bengal | 9 | 40 | 25.97 | 53.0 |
| Pankaj Singh | Rajasthan | 8 | 39 | 22.46 | 48.7 |
| Vishal Dabholkar* | Mumbai | 9 | 39 | 26.76 | 54.2 |