Indian batters' struggle against quality spin- Sehwag's bold statement as Gambhir faces this challenge as head coach

Gautam Gambhir's first assignment as head coach began on a bittersweet note, with India whitewashing Sri Lanka 3-0 in the T20Is but suffering a 0-2 defeat in the ODIs. The ODI series started with a tie – with no Super Over – followed by Sri Lanka winning the second and third ODIs by convincing margins. The victory was made even sweeter by the fact that Sri Lanka was missing some of their key players – Matheesha Pathirana, Wanindu Hasaranga, and Dilshan Madushanka – due to injuries.

The ODI series defeat highlighted a long-standing issue for India: their batters' struggle against quality spin. In the three ODIs, India lost 27 of their 30 wickets to spinners, with Jeffrey Vandersay's 6/33 causing significant damage in the second game, and Dunith Wellalage's five-wicket haul cleaning up in the decider. Wellalage had also caused problems for the same team a year ago at the Asia Cup 2023 in Colombo, but India managed to scrape through to victory.

Gone are the days when the Indian batting line-up would dominate spin regardless of the conditions. Since the 2008 tour of Sri Lanka, when 'mystery' spinner Ajantha Mendis was unleashed, India's famed batting line-up of the 2000s – featuring Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, and Sourav Ganguly – rarely faltered. Today, however, it has become common for Indian batsmen to struggle against spin. Whether faced with a part-time spinner or a specialist, the last decade has seen Indian batting repeatedly tested by spin, and addressing this issue will be one of Gambhir's foremost challenges.

Regarding the decline in India's ability to play spin, Virender Sehwag, who made a career out of dominating spinners, offered an insightful perspective. The only batter to score two triple-centuries in Tests, Sehwag attributes India's spin troubles to two main factors: a lack of quality spinners and insufficient exposure to spin in domestic cricket.

Reason for the decline

“One reason for this is that with the increase in white-ball cricket, fewer spinners are coming through. In T20 cricket, you bowl 24 balls and don’t flight them, so you don’t develop the skill to dismiss batsmen. I think that could be one reason. Indian players also play less domestic cricket now. In domestic cricket, you face more spin than in international cricket, so that might also be a factor. Currently, I don't see any quality spinners in India who can flight the ball well and take wickets,” Sehwag said.

“In our time, Dravid, Sachin, Ganguly, Laxman, Yuvraj, and others all played domestic cricket, whether it was ODI or four-day cricket. We faced many spinners in those matches, but today's players have less time due to the busy schedule. There are various leagues, and as a result, the skill of playing spin is not being developed as much,” he added.

Perhaps this was the reason the BCCI recently made it mandatory for Indian cricketers to participate in domestic cricket. Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan, having failed to adhere to this rule, saw their central contracts terminated. This served as a wake-up call from the BCCI to all players who had been neglecting domestic cricket.