Indian cricket’s biggest irony today is a dearth of quality spinners. It has been the traditional strength of the country, and most wickets even today are keyed to this vital ‘advantage’ that we seemingly had. But the bench strength in that category is fast dwindling into mediocrity. If you run through the name of tweakers who will play in the Challenger Series beginning at the Motera tomorrow, you would probably not go beyond Piyush Chawla (returning to action after an injury lay-off), who can grab a spot in the national team with authority . “Yes, we are struggling a bit there. There are a lot of youngsters. But we certainly don’t have the quality of a Bishan Singh Bedi, or Srinivas Venkatraghavan, or Anil Kumble. Not even the class of Harbhajan Singh,” says Bhupinder Singh, a national selector. So what led to this present state? Actually, a combination of factors. “One-day cricket has certainly dented spinners a lot. They are now more into containing than purchasing,” says the selector. Former Indian opener Aunshuman Gaekwad points out another factor. “The focus in India has shifted from spin to pace. There should be pacers, but not at the cost of spinners. We can have both. Wouldn’t that be a much better equation?” he asks. Let’s take a look at some of the spinners who will play in the Challenger Series — Ramesh Powar, Pragyan Ojha, Iqbal Abdulla, Amit Mishra, apart from Chawla. Take the case of Powar. After a reasonable performance in the NatWest series in England (he was the most economical Indian bowler after RP Singh), two bad matches followed at home against Australia, and the selectors lost faith in him. His poor fielding did not help either. The 21-year-old Ojha has been playing on the domestic circuit since 2004-05, and has 94 first-class wickets from 22 matches. In the first match between India A and South Africa A (four-day) he emerged the best player and the tourists admitted that he was the hardest to face. But will he able to push the bigger names like Murali Kartik out of the race? When India wanted to go for a left-arm spinner, the selectors had to fall back on the 31-year-old Kartik, handing the spinner his 14th comeback. The decision clicked as Kartik justified his inclusion, but it clearly shows that Ojha has yet to gain enough confidence of the selectors. “Kartik was not there earlier as he was injured. And he needed to play some matches before making a comeback. And hence he was not there for sometime,” says national selector Venkatapathy Raju. “I spoke to Kartik and he told me he has been performing well for more than a year now. Kartik should be a certainly in the first 15. A left-arm spinner should always be there. Now tell me where is Rajesh Pawar. They picked him for the Bangladesh tour, and then he vanished from the scene (before managing to pick just one wicket in a four-day match versus Kenya for India A in Mombasa),” says Gaekwad. Abdulla, 17, another left-arm spinner, has been successful at the age-group level, but has played only two first class matches so far.And leg-spinner Mishra has been on the circuit since 2000-01 and has an impressive tally of 250 wickets from 67 first class matches. He was rewarded once with an India berth, and travelled to Bangladesh with the team. But after a less-than-impressive show in three ODIs, was dumped. The 24-year-old, unfortunately, had to fight for a berth with the great Anil Kumble.What is the way out?“These youngsters need to be exposed to different conditions and different oppositions more often,” says Gaekwad.“These youngsters are talented. They just need to go through 2-3 more domestic seasons,” says Raju. We will have to wait.
