THREE IS A CROWD

Three spinners to a Test squad would have raised no eyebrows even a decade and a half back, maybe. It would have been only the natural thing to do for the selectors. Also, talent was at hand to select from. Today, pace and seam shows talent, purchase and support, so when three move into skipper Anil Kumble8217;s team, there is bound to be amused observations. A closer look, though, would probably show that a horses-for-courses approach, aiming for success, would anyway have suggested such a move.
The three-Test series versus Pakistan at home is good enough an excuse to err on the side of caution, and the spectator, used to the recent bravado of batsmen, would probably sit back and accept a bit more say from the bowlers, conceding that things need to be differently adjusted for Tests. Hence, while it is certainly no indication that India would be heading back to the wizard-quartet days 8212; especially with the Australian tour round the corner 8212; somewhere in the minds did exist this nagging thought that we may be forgetting where our natural advantage lies. Kumble8217;s promotion to captaincy may just have opened the memory gates.
As far as the series versus Pakistan goes, aficionados may be expecting some mouth-watering battles between the Pakistani speedguns and Indian batsmen. The main battle, though, might well be the tussle between India8217;s spin battery and Pakistani batsmen.
Three top-of-the-line spinners 8212; Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and Murali Kartik 8212; are in the team, and it is to be seen if Kumble will go for a spin-dominated attack against the likes of Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan.
We gathered views from a number of past and current cricketers, including members of the famous spin quartet, on the Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore Tests.

THREE OR TWO IN TEAM?
Two masters of that quartet of the 1960s-70s, Erapalli Prasanna and Bishan Singh Bedi, are for playing all three spinners in the first Test in Delhi.
8220;The combination of Kumble, Harbhajan and Kartik is the most potent attack that I can think of for the Pakistan Test series, if you consider the composition of the opponent team and the situation,8221; asserts Bedi. 8220;Why didn8217;t we think about picking all three together before? I am sorry to say, for the past few years we have been relying too much on mediocre seamers. In this series, spinners will dominate the show, it8217;s a refreshing move.8221;
Equally supportive of this opinion is Prasanna, although he doubts if the three-spinner combination will be tried out in Kolkata and Bangalore. 8220;Keeping three spinners in the squad is not the point, playing them in the XI is what matters. Will all three be played together? It8217;s a million-dollar question. The team should go all out with them in the opening Test, while they should stick to two spinners in Kolkata and Bangalore,8221; the former offie opined.
Prasanna8217;s message to Kumble is simple 8212; play your two main spinners 8220;in tandem8221; and over long periods of time. 8220;Let Kumble and Harbhajan be the frontline spin pair. The leggie-offie combination, and in tandem, will do the trick,8221; he said.
However, another member of India8217;s famed quartet of the past, Srinivas Venkatraghavan, isn8217;t too convinced. 8220;Of course, Kumble and Harbhajan will be my first picks, with Kartik as the third choice. Kumble and Harbhajan know how to complement each other. But we can8217;t play all three spinners just for the heck of it. I mean, we should go by the nature of the wickets being prepared for the three Tests.8221;
Venkat cites the presence of pacers in the team to justify his stance. 8220;It8217;s not that we only have to rely on Kumble and Harbhajan. We have some good, reliable new ball bowlers. Zaheer Khan and Sreesanth are there, and then there is RP Singh. So, we are not just one-sided and spin-heavy,8221; he said.

YESTERDAY ONCE MORE
It was time for a walk back memory lane. 8220;I remember those days when even Chandra BS Chandrasekhar sometimes opened the bowling, we were that dependent on the spinners. Or think about the days when we eagerly waited for the ball to lose its shine so that the spinners could start operating. Till before Kapil Dev came along, we never had a good pacer,8221; said Venkat. 8220;But today, scene is much better with Zaheer, Sreesanth and RP Singh as important in the team as the spinners.8221;
The famous revival of spin of 1992 keeps coming back to mind, when under Mohammed Azharuddin8217;s captaincy, the trio of Kumble, Venkatpathy Raju and Rajesh Chauhan sent the visiting Englishmen into a tizzy. Recalls Manoj Prabhakar, Kapil Dev8217;s new ball partner during that home series: 8220;We pacers used the new ball till the shine was off, and get some early wickets. After that, I would just wait and watch as the spinners did the rest.8221;
Prabhakar reckons that it was largely because the team then had Kapil and him as two reliable new ball bowlers that they had the luxury of playing three spinners. 8220;I am not sure if this team will be able to play all three spinners in the Pakistan series,8221; a candid Prabhakar said.
Prasanna warns that you can8217;t take the Pakistani batsmen for granted. 8220;Test cricket is a different thing. Indian bowlers better brace up for resistance from Younis Khan and Md Yousuf. They will bat much better than in the one-dayers,8221; he said.

THE KUMBLE FACTOR
Despite having somewhat differing viewpoints, the three legends from the quartet Pras, Bedi and Venkat, reckon that Kumble becoming the captain is a major factor for the spin-dominance.
8220;With Kumble as captain, the outlook will be different from now on. He is an experienced man, but he should be given a free hand by the selectors to do well,8221; said Bedi.
8220;Picking Kumble as the captain is a good move, although it8217;s come in the twilight of his career. He commands respect from all the players in the team, and there are no two ways about whether an experienced man like him will do well in this Test series. After all, he8217;s been playing for 15 years and knows the Indian bowling scenario well,8221; says Venkat.

8230;AND KARTIK
Kumble and Harbhajan are certain to form India8217;s main spin duo for the three Tests. Kartik, despite all the importance of the third spinner, is still the third spinner after all. This is what Kartik himself has to say. 8220;As the third spinner in the past, I had a role to play which is equally important to those of the first and second spinners. The idea is to bowl tight, create pressure and get through your overs quickly. With three spinners around, the captain has got a lot of choices,8221; says the left-arm spinner.
Current selector Raju, who was part of the spin trio that spearheaded India8217;s crushing win over England at home in 1992, doesn8217;t think it8217;s a good idea to set aside the third spinner as an extra. 8220;There8217;s nothing called a first, second and third spinner. All three picked are important, and they have different roles to play, depending upon the match situation and what the captain wants. Different responsibilities are attached to the different spinners,8221; Raju defends.
The last time India played three spinners 8212; Kumble, Harbhajan and young leggie Piyush Chawla 8212; was in 2005-06, in the Mohali Test against England, which the hosts won by nine wickets.
Interestingly, the last time Kumble and Harbhajan paired up in Tests goes back by a long way too, during India8217;s Caribbean tour in 2006.
Inputs by G. S. Vivek