India vs New Zealand: Team India to wear ‘spin-heavy’ look as Test action returns to home

Traditionally, the Indian cricket team has relied on spinners to deliver in the home conditions, and Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Amit Mishra will get do the lion’s share in the bowling department against New Zealand.

The first Test between India and New Zealand from September 22 at Kanpur marks the beginning of busy home season for India, where they go one to play a record 13 Tests in next six months. The Kanpur Test also marks the return of Test cricket to India after nine months. When India last played at home, they beat South Africa by a comfortable margin of 3-0 in the four-match series. It could well have been 4-0, if not for the wash out at Bengaluru in the second Test, where only a day’s play could take place. India were thus robbed off a golden chance of blanking the World No.1 side.

The main feature of that series was that the bowlers dominated it. In the three completed Tests, the average first innings score was 189, well below the 200-run mark. For the second innings, it came down further to 180 with one incomplete innings in the fourth Test at Delhi as India declared to push for a win. Such was the domination of bowlers that only two hundreds were scored in the entire series — both by Ajinkya Rahane in the same Test. 95 of the 124 wickets that fell in the series were claimed by the spinners — a whopping 77 percent of the total.

Ravichandran Ashwin (31), Ravindra Jadeja (24) and Amit Mishra (7) got the lion’s share. Needless to say, the Indian attack for the upcoming New Zealand series, and for the rest of the season, is expected to wear the spin-heavy look. FULL CRICKET SCORECARD: India vs New Zealand, 1st Test at Kanpur

Spin vs Pace

Traditionally, the Indian cricket team has relied on spinners to deliver in the home conditions. The pitches usually dished out for Test cricket are slow, low and dry, hence conducive for spin bowling. That is predominantly why India have always had an assembly line of spinners — The famous spin quartet (Bishan Singh Bedi, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Srinivas Venkatraghavan and Erapalli Prasanna), Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Subhash Gupte and now Ashwin.

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Pacers, on the other hand, have little to do on such pitches. With virtually no grass on the 22 yards, there is little assistance for pace, bounce, or lateral air movement. The only weapon they are left with is reverse swing, something the Kiwis are banking upon. “On surfaces that aren’t responsive in terms of seam movement and they are abrasive and they lose their shine very quickly, you need to find another way. Hence overseas teams are pretty keen to find ways to get the ball to reverse, obviously in a legitimate fashion,” New Zealand coach Mike Hesson had told the reporters shortly after arriving in India, hinting at their strategy to counter India’s spin threat.

Coming back to the spin vs pace debate, the statistics also suggest why it is imperative to place your bet on spinners in the Indian subcontinent. If we go not too far back, only past five Test series in India, we see how the spinners have dominated even in the recent times.

Last 5 Test series in India

 You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand why teams opt for spin-heavy attacks in India. On an average, in an innings, spinners have taken seven wickets in every Test match in past five series in India. The same trend is expected to dominate the upcoming series too. Both the teams have loaded their squads with quality spinners. Ashwin, the only spinner to play in past five Tests series in India, will lead the Indian spin attack. He will have able allies in Ravindra Jadeja, who is unstoppable on Indian tracks, and Amit Mishra, the only leg-spinner in the squad. At the same time, the visitors too have bolstered their spin arsenal by including Ish Sodhi, Mark Craig and Mitchell Santner to their squad.

Five-bowler theory

In the MS Dhoni era, Team India’s preferred combination in Tests was 7-4 (seven batsmen, four bowlers), with Dhoni himself batting at No. 7. But ever since Virat Kohli took over the reins of Indian Test side, he has advocated a five-bowler theory. “I am always in the favour of playing five bowlers because if we play more batsmen, you can score 700 runs in a Test but that doesn’t help in any way. You need to take 20 wickets to win a Test match. So our top five batsmen plus the wicketkeeper will have to take responsibility and raise a big score so that we can bowl them out twice,” Kohli had reiterated his approach during a pre-match press conference in the Caribbean.

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Under him, India play with a 6-5 combination. When playing overseas, the team features three pacers and two spinners while in India, three spinners and two pacers constitute the bowling attack. Ashwin coming good at No. 6 in the recently concluded Test series in the Caribbean with his two hundreds has only given a boost to Kohli’s strategy. So, it is certain that in the Kanpur Test, five bowlers (three spinners, two pacers) will take the field, with Ashwin and wicket-keeper batsman Wriddhiman Saha taking the No. 6 and 7 slots.

The Ishant Sharma dilemma

With all the three spinners picking themselves, the only problem in the bowling department that India is likely to face is filling the fast bowlers’ slots. India have named four pacers — Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav, in their squad. But it is certain that only two can make it to the playing XI in Indian conditions — only one at times, when a dustbowl is offered —and Bhuvneshwar and Shami appear to be the frontrunners for the same. In India’s last Test, the fourth Test against West Indies at Port of Spain, Ishant played besides the two of them. For last few years, he has been expected to be India’s pace spearhead in Tests, but he has largely disappointed.

That has been the story of his career so far; he has either been brilliant or frustratingly mediocre. The less said about his numbers, the better as they don’t back him for a place in the two slots up for grabs. In all likelihood thus, Bhuvneshwar, with a fifer in the last completed Test India played, and Shami, who can be lethal with his reverse swing, may start in the playing XI and take the remaining two places in India’s five-men bowling attack. Few can forget his nine wickets on debut at the Eden Gardens in 2013, which he mainly got through reverse swing, which is going to be an important factor in Indian conditions.

(A self-confessed cricket freak, Chinmay Jawalekar is a senior writer with CricLife and CricketCountry. When not writing or following cricket, he loves to read, eat and sleep. He can be followed here @CricfreakTweets)

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