LEFT OUT

If the selectors want them, the captain doesn8217;t. And if the captain is keen, the selectors have turned the other away. You can blame it on modern cricket too, which has no time for the art of buying a wicket. And yes, you can definitely slam the Indian cricket officialdom, for simply not bothering to care.

And to think that this is the land of Bishan Singh Bedi, Vinoo Mankad, Bapu Nadkarni, Padmakar Shivalkar, Rajinder Goel, Dilip Doshi, Maninder Singh, Venkatapathi Raju and Kartik.

Remember the 1971 Port of Spain Test match when ML Jaisimha, not playing in that Test, tipped off captain Ajit Wadekar about Salim Durrani and his left-arm magic. The result? Durrani got Clive Llyod and Gary Sobers out8212;the latter for a duck8212;as India won by seven wickets. Remember India8217;s first ever Test win in the 1952 Madras Test against England, courtesy Vinoo Mankad8217;s 8/55 and 4/53? Remember, the 266 wickets of Bishan Bedi? Remember how Dilip Doshi bagged 100 wickets in only 28 Test matches?

So what do left-arm spinners bring to the table? Why are they an important component of any team? Says Kartik, 8216;8216;It8217;s the variety, almost like what a left-arm seamer brings when you have a right-armer bowling at the other end. Again, if you have two right-handers bowling off-spin and leg-spin, this is about a completely different angle, a different point of release, a different challenge altogether for the batsman.8217;8217;

It8217;s about a whole new line of bowling, the ball drifting in to the right-handed batsman, then turning away. And most importantly, during India8217;s crucial Australia tour coming up this year-end, it could be the match-winning option against a country whose batsmen aren8217;t used to playing against a classical left-arm spinner at home.

But while the world has woken up to this8212;Daniel Vettori has been New Zealand8217;s mainstay for 10 years now, England have virtually declared Monty Panesar a national treasure see box8212;India8217;s assets have dwindled rapidly.

8216;8216;The life of a bowler lies in the hands of the captain,8217;8217; says Bedi, India8217;s best left-arm spinner ever. 8216;8216;If he has a chip on his shoulder and has some grudges, then the bowler might as well say goodbye. I can8217;t think of any other reason other than Sourav Ganguly for single-handedly killing the art of left-arm spin. For some strange reason, he couldn8217;t digest a left-arm spinner could be a match-winner too. He8217;s mellowed down a lot now, but the damage has been done,8217;8217; he adds.

Says Maninder, 35 Tests, 88 wickets: 8216;8216;What has hurt Kartik and others like us over the years is that we have had captains in the past who didn8217;t think too highly of left-arm spin. Thankfully, now we have one in MS Dhoni and that is certainly good thing to happen for the game.8217;8217;

It was Dhoni who yanked out Kartik from the commentary box during the recent Australia one-day series8212;an inspirational move that saw Kartik pick up 8 wickets in four games, stunning Australia in the final game with a six-wicket haul.

Maninder too points a finger at Ganguly, the skipper of many an inspirational Indian win. 8216;8216;Kartik is a fabulous cricketer and he should have achieved a lot more than what he has now, but sadly Ganguly never thought he, or rather any other left-arm spinner, fitted in. And then whenever he did bring one in, the left-arm spinner is always the third spinner in the team and used with set field patterns to hold things up from one end,8217;8217; he says.

Consider what got buried in India8217;s historic 2-1 home series win against Australia in 2001. Delhi8217;s Rahul Sanghvi played the first Test, got Steve Waugh out, and then sat out. Hyderabad8217;s Raju, now a national selector, came back to play one last match of his career in the second Test in Kolkata. And Mumbai8217;s Nilesh Kulkarni8212;the lanky spinner took a wicket first ball of his career8212;made a comeback in the last Test in Chennai, again for his last ever Test. Then, in the following tour, there was none in the 15.

Now you know why Kartik took off for a jubilant celebratory run during an Irani Trophy match in 2003 after getting Ganguly out8212;the bowler will maintain a straight face and deny this, though.

In fact, ever since Ganguly took over as captain in 1999, and through his stint of 147 ODIs and 49s, the careers of Karnataka8217;s Sunil Joshi, Sanghvi, Kulkarni and Raju have got stalled at various points. And Kartik, who was the future even then, played in four of those Test matches, and 19 ODIs.

Why Ganguly and Kartik, even Doshi claims to have gone through similar treatment under the legendary Sunil Gavaskar in the 8217;80s. So much so that in his autobiography Spin Punch, Doshi called Gavaskar a person 8216;8216;bogged down in personal likes and dislikes, either evasive or flippant8217;8217;.

Other than wary captains, there are other reasons why India8217;s love affair with left-arm spin broke up by the 8217;90s.

Says Joshi, 15 Tests and 41 wickets, who at 37 has been among the highest wicket-taking bowlers in domestic cricket: 8216;8216;There are so many reasons why the left-arm spinner isn8217;t seen around. You are left at the mercy of selectors, your luck depends upon the skipper who may or may not include you in the XI.8217;8217;

In fact, former captains Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammed Azharuddin were all praise for Joshi during 1996 England tour, mesmerised by 8216;8216;Jo8217;s loop and turn8217;8217; but were guilty of not backing him. 8216;8216;I cannot believe that there are no good left-arm spinners in the country and that there is no talent left. It8217;s just the question of who and what you want to look at,8217;8217; says Joshi.

But Bedi feels the vindictive Indian cricket board and even his association with 8216;8216;the boys8217;8217;, as their mentor, ruined many careers. 8216;8216;I think they have suffered because of me,8217;8217; insists Bedi. 8216;8216;I hate to think it was because of me. The BCCI has held the boys responsible for the comments I have made against it. If you have any scores to settle, do it with me. I can stick my neck out and say that Joshi suffered because he was my student. In my words he was most wonderful student of the game. What do I stand to gain if any talented boy plays for India? I am not in the line for claiming a Dronacharya award. At the same time, I don8217;t suffer if these boys don8217;t play, it8217;s the team that suffers and people has to understand that,8217;8217; he says.

The system surely should get its part of blame, what with little follow-up being done on emerging talent. For instance, where is Baroda8217;s Rajesh Pawar? Remember, Pawar was named in the list of 30 probables for the 2007 World Cup, was part of the Indian contingent to Bangladesh after that, did not play a single game, and now finds himself without a place even in the domestic Challenger Trophy series.

Or Ravinder Jadeja, the under-19 star who was picked for the India A team and taken on tour and is now languishing in West Zone, playing zonal under-19 tournaments.

Then again, the BCCI has scrapped the spin wing in the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, of which Bedi was a part. 8216;8216;Where wrong have these kids done?8217;8217; asks Bedi.

Maninder says the star culture in Indian cricket is to blame, too8212;no left-arm star, no hype, no sponsors. 8216;8216;When I started my cricket, there was a Bishan Bedi to look up to. Sadly, when the younger generation took up the game, there was no role model. We didn8217;t get to stay for long. Ravi Shastri the other left-arm spinner of the 8217;80s was more of a batsman, and youngsters instead got hooked to Shane Warne, Mutaiah Muralitharan and Saqlain Mushtaq,8217;8217; he says.

Raju, who is part of the system now, is understandably careful. 8216;8216;There8217;s a cycle in international cricket and everything occurs in that. One has to be patient, like at one time we had two of them in the same XI, then it changed with Anil Kumble coming in. Recently we had more off-spinners in the side. Slowly, we will see left-arm spinners returning as well. And that happens to all teams. Look at Pakistan8212;through all these years they didn8217;t have any left-arm spinner, now they have one. We just have to be patient and let the cycle run its course. In conditions sometimes, one cannot pick more than two spinners, so one type of spinner has to be left out.8217;8217;

The other, more commonly debated factor, is that India8217;s left-arm aces have all come in batches. When Bedi was at his peak, Rajinder Goel, Rajinder Hans, Padmakar Sivalkar and Mumtaz Hussain didn8217;t get a chance. Again, in the 1980s, there were Doshi, Raghuram Bhatt, Maninder and Shastri. And then, Raju, Joshi, Sanghvi, Kulkarni and Kartik.

Finally, modern cricket and the death of loop, the essence of left-arm spin. Raju says it8217;s 8216;8216;about the revolutions on the ball these days rather than the trajectory. Today8217;s cricket is a power game and spinners in general have to adapt to it. Sometimes the situation demands that you hold up one end and not leak runs.8217;8217;

So who next? Yes, there is quality in the making, classical too. Karnataka8217;s K Appanna, 17, member of India8217;s under-19 team, has come in for a lot of praise from bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad. Hyderabad8217;s Pragyan Ojha, 21, is also being dubbed a 8216;8216;fast learner8217;8217; and there8217;s Mumbai8217;s Iqbal Abdullah, 17, who has been tagged as 8216;8216;interesting8217;8217;.

But another Bedi? Another Doshi? Another Maninder? Tough. For now, Kartik, will do. If they let him stay.