In the last two series - one against a team which is at the bottom of
the table (West Indies) & the other, a team that is now #1
(England), India came a cropper and also lost the #1 ranking. The
biggest reason for the consistent poor performances against these
relatively & quality-wise diametrically opposite teams is because we
do not have a bowling unit that can take 20 wickets to win a match!
While we have had some good faster bowlers like Kapil Dev and J Srinath,
India's strength has always been spin. And the team, not to mention the
bench, looks bare of quality, match-winning spinners. The current
incumbents - India's Harbhajan & Amit Mishra look like middle order
batsmen who can bowl part-time spin.
Therefore, it is time to look for a new spin attack of which there
should be around 6 to 7 in the list of 30 and 2 in the playing 11.
I can think of the following:
1. Pragyan Ojha (slow left arm orthodox) - 54 matches, 225 wickets
2. Piyush Chawla (Right arm Legbreak, googly, can bat) - 69 matches, 272 wickets, 2644 runs batting (ave 29)
3. R. Ashwin (Right arm off break, doosra, can bat) - 34 matches, 134 wickets, 1170 runs batting (Ave 35)
4. Rahul Sharma (Right arm Legbreak, googly) - 7 matches, 13 wickets
5. Bhargav Bhatt (slow left arm orthodox) - 11 matches, 55 wickets
6. Iqbal Abdulla (All rounder, slow left arm orthodox) - 28 matches, 864 runs batting (ave 34.6), 88 wickets
7. Vikas Mishra (slow left arm orthodox) - 10 matches, 44 wickets
All these stats are pertaining to First Class games only and do not include list A, tests, ODI, t20I & twenty20.
The
best thing about this is that all of these players are in their early
twenties and can grow and mature into world-class spinners.
Is our cricket selection committee taking notice?
-1.jpg)
