Watching a pair of express quicks putting batsmen through the wringer can spark an adrenaline rush, but no sight on a cricket field is more compelling than two world-class spinners testing resolve, character and technique over a sustained period of time, and especially on an even slightly responsive surface. The experience is so intense that by the end of a day’s play, even the audience is mentally fatigued, having drawn on reservoirs of concentration and focus, what with each ball being an event in itself.
As recently as a decade and a bit back, India boasted the finest line-up of exceptional players of the turning ball. The names roll off the tongue with practised ease. Virender Sehwag. Gautam Gambhir. Rahul Dravid. Sachin Tendulkar. VVS Laxman. Sourav Ganguly. Each had a different method, each employed a different tack but the opposition knew that these virtuosos had to be prised out, that the turning ball held no fears for them.
It's not as if a special gift had been bestowed on these worthies. Brought up on a steady diet of high-quality spin bowling in domestic cricket, they honed their craft through hours of practice and match-play, bringing feet and hands into play with increasing authority and dominating spin by often playing against the turn and, therefore, finding gaps where lesser mortals would find the fielders.
There was a reason why they developed soft hands and nimble, nifty footwork. There was a reason why they could defend with felicity and attack when the slightest opportunity presented itself. Each of them had at least a couple of top-class spinners in their own state side, and a plethora in their zones when the Ranji Trophy was played on a zonal basis. Take Laxman, for example. As a teenager breaking into the Hyderabad team, he’d get to play Arshad Ayub, Kanwaljit Singh and Venkatapathi Raju, masters of their craft, at the nets. When he travelled to play Karnataka, he’d be confronted by Anil Kumble and Sunil Joshi, among others. Tamil Nadu could summon M Venkataramana, D Vasu and Aashish Kapoor, and even Kerala, then a relative domestic lightweight, could fall back on KN Ananthapadmanabhan and B Ramprakash.
Having played such established artists’ day in and day out, the Shane Warnes and the Muttiah Muralitharans held little terror. Such was Laxman’s command and control that he could whip-drive Warne through midwicket and go inside-out through covers to two deliveries pitched at exactly the same spot. The contest between fizzing ball and twirling bat was a battle to savour.
Sadly, because that’s what it is, the art of playing spin has gradually started to disappear. And as is the case in such scenarios, there is no one reason why that has transpired.
Many years back, Dravid spoke of how his own game against spin dipped a notch or two as he played more and more international cricket. His reasoning was that since he was already adept at spin but needed to up his skills against pace which he would confront more than he would spin in Test cricket, a lot of his focus at practice was on fast bowling. While muscle memory meant that he didn’t surrender his spin-craft, the perceptible drop in the ability to play the turning ball was inevitable. And we are talking of Dravid, who played 164 Tests, amassed 13,288 runs, and finished with an average of 52.3!
Australia’s tame surrender in the first two Tests of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy reiterated just how alarmingly batting standards against spin of the highest order have nosedived. R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are formidable foes, without a doubt, but even they must have been astonished at the noticeable lack of fight and spirit from a group generally renowned for its combativeness and unwillingness to roll over. Australia’s pronounced and fatal affliction for sweep of all varieties spoke to a distinct lack of faith in their defensive techniques. By attempting a one-size-fits-all policy and compounding their woes by picking the most ill-suited side, they showcased both their technical incompetence and mental inadequacy when confronted with what is still by and large an unfamiliar challenge.
It wasn’t as if, against less illustrious bowlers, India’s batsmen covered themselves in greater glory either. Together, Ashwin and Jadeja have more than 700 Test wickets; Australia’s spin attack comprised one near-legend (Nathan Lyon) and two others who made their debut in the first and second Tests, respectively, Todd Murphy and Matt Kuhnemann. Lyon is in a class of his own, but India’s approach against him as well as Murphy showed that they are no longer the unquestioned destroyers of spin that they used to be not so long ago.
Much of it has to do with how little domestic cricket the current players are able to play. Cheteshwar Pujara is a one-format international and so turns out for Saurashtra whenever he can, Shreyas Iyer has only recently become a regular and, thus, was able to ply his wares for Mumbai for long periods. KS Bharat too is a recent entrant to top-flight cricket, and because he represents Andhra in the Ranji Trophy, he has been able to retain his core approach to spin.
Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul don’t play much, if at all, for their respective states; while Sharma is still excellent against the turning ball, Kohli and Rahul aren’t so much, which again stems from lack of competitive game-time away from the cauldron of Test cricket against the spitting, fizzing, scooting ball.
They can practice all they want against Ashwin and Jadeja and Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav in the nets, but that can’t entirely prepare them for the pressures and ebb and flow of a match. There are no close-catchers, no relentless applying of pressure, no drying up of the scoreboard, no DRS appeals, no danger of not batting anymore if dismissed.
That being said, the spin cupboard isn’t as brim-full at the first-class level as it once used to be, another contributory factor alongside the burgeoning urge to top up power and range-hitting at nets in preparation for the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the turning ball becoming such a dreaded proposition. It’s the new reality and it’s here to stay, whether one likes it or not.
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