Spinners loose plot after India drop pace

From Zaheers line,Langer changed over to Umesh Yadavs hit-the-deck-hard length,following it up with a few breezy Kumars the gentle swing of Praveen and Vinay

Down in the trenches as the basement nets area of the Melbourne Cricket Ground is called Matthew Wade stopped Justin Langer during his throwdowns and said: Alfie,Id like a Zaheer Khan please. So Langer,with a bowling cup in one hand and a mitten in the other,remarked his crease and zipped balls from a left-armers angle to the man who was yet to make his debut.

From Zaheers line,Langer changed over to Umesh Yadavs hit-the-deck-hard length,following it up with a few breezy Kumars the gentle swing of Praveen and Vinay. On Saturday,a day before the match that was forecast for a downpour,Langer and Wade reckoned that the Indian spinners will probably not have much of a role to play on the true surface of the MCG. On Sunday,they didnt. But neither did Zaheer and Umesh.

They couldnt,as they didnt play.

For reasons known only to MS Dhoni despite overcast conditions and the prevalence of rain in the air he decided to open his tri-series defence with two specialist spinners,two part-time spinners and one spinning all-rounder. He won the toss and decided to take the field first the right move in those conditions,but the wrong one with his playing XI make-up.

By the time the players trudged off the field when the heavens opened up at the end of the 11th over,Vinay had dismissed both David Warner and Ricky Ponting.

Unfortunately,though,with no back-up pacers,the Indians found the going extremely hard when the match resumed three hours later.

We were doing well before rain, said Dhoni at the end of the game. On return,they went after our bowling. Our loose deliveries were too loose. That was the difference.

The real difference was that the pacers were in operation before the shower,the spinners after.

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As the match was culled to 32-overs a side,the problems intensified for the Indian captain,as he had bowled both Praveen and Vinay for five overs each. With only two bowlers allowed to bowl seven each,Dhoni was forced to bring forth the spinners. And in the 17 out of the remaining 21 overs that were bowled by Ravichandran Ashwin,Rahul Sharma,Ravindra Jadeja,Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina,the tweakers conceded 154 runs at 9.05. Specialist Ashwin went at 9.60,while all-rounder Jadeja at 15.37.

The target still ballooned to 216,something their pace quartet of Ryan Harris,Mitchell Starc,Clint McKay and Daniel Christian eased into restricting. Christian finished with one,Starc with two and McKay four. Clarke was the only part-timer,and he went wicketless.

So why werent the likes of Zaheer ,Umesh or Irfan Pathan played? Dhoni answered: Irfan is a fast bowling all-rounder,but he has just returned to the team. As far as Zaheer is concerned,he has a niggle in either his left or right knee. Thats why he didnt play. Umesh had no niggles in either knees,yet the only appearance he made over the weekend was during an imitation by the throwing arm of coach Langer.