A look at India's Spin Department

India has been land of producing quality spin bowlers in the likes of Bishen Singh Bedi, Anil Kumble, Ravichandran Aswin, Harbajan Singh and many more. The Indian pitches are spin bowling friendly which assist turn. This is one of the main reasons why India has always been successful in producing quality spin bowlers. Spin has never been a matter of concern for Indian team. But in the last few years at some occasions there have been lots of questions raised on Indian batsmen playing spin defensively and bowling of Indian spinners specially in limited overs cricket.

Over a period of time, the format of the cricket has evolved and to cope with the format of cricket the focus has also changed. 

Now, the Indian team focuses more on fitness than the skills. Fitness is now considered first preference and skills as second priority. Recently when India's new mystery spinner Varun Chakravarti was selected for Ind vs England t20s series but failed to pass fitness. Due to failing the fitness test he was replaced in the squad. So this incident is enough to prove that fitness is given very much importance in Indian Cricket Team. 

Indian Team is now having a plethora of quality fast bowlers which is also a result of good fitness standards. Under Virat Kohli captaincy, undoubtedly fast bowlers have done great work. The performance of Md. Shami, Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma under Virat kohli's captaincy has improved a lot especially in Test Cricket as suggested by stats. 

According to the India squad against England in limited overs cricket, there are 6-7 spinners. I am not considering Washington Sundar, Rabindra Jadeja (not in the squad due to injury), Krunal Pandya, Axar Patel, Rahul tewatia as frontline spinners. Now look at the frontline spinners, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav and Rahul Chahar. Since Rahul Chahar has played only 3 t20s so not considering him, there are mainly 2 frontline spinners.

Now look at these two spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal.

Serious Case of Kuldeep Yadav

Kuldeep Yadav India's left arm wrist spinner generally called as Chinaman. This breed of spinner is very less in world cricket right now. We all know that he was phenomenal with his match winning performances when he entered international cricket.

Image Credit to Reuters Photo

After the 2017 champions trophy Indian Cricket Team introduced two wrist spinners in the form of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal in playing 11 commonly called as kulcha (kul +cha refers to Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal respectively). The mindset of Indian Team Management was to take wickets in middle overs which was not with Ravichandran Aswin who was economical but not a wicket taker in limited overs cricket and fitness was also a concern with him. India was quite successful with this mindset of playing two wrist spinners till the 2019 world cup.

But due to injury issues with Hardik Pandya India lost the balance and brought back Ravindra Jadeja who then established himself in the team with his all round skills. Since then Indian team is compelled to play one of Kuldeep and Chahal with Jadeja playing the role of 2nd spinner.

Many former cricketer believed that the smart mind of Ms Dhoni behind the wickets helped a lot to Kulcha which was not the case with Rishab Pant and Kl Rahul taking the gloves. After the 2019 world cup there is a serious downfall in performance of Kuldeep and Chahal.

I will tell you the reason, first look at the stats.

Stat Credit to howstat.com

Kuldeep Yadav performance over the years👆 in Odi cricket. He was brilliant till 2018 and after that he was not so good.

Why Kuldeep Yadav is not able to perform since the 2019 world cup ?

Kuldeep Yadav is not able to take wickets since the world cup because of lack of game time and game pressure. Kuldeep has been in the Test and Odi squad after the 2019 World cup. But he has played hardly 4-5 international matches in the time span of 2 years and as I had mentioned above that in limited overs cricket only one of Chahal and Kuldeep plays and in test cricket Aswin is doing an outstanding job. Since he was with Team India he has not played domestic matches as well. Addition to that, due to Pandemic many players lacked proper training and practice for more than 6 months. Many people say that Kuldeep is the only player in Indian team who plays for India but is not able to play for his franchise regularly and stats also suggest the same. Lets see his ipl performances over the years 👇

Stat Credit to howstat.com

In last two ipl season, he has played overall 14 matches. In 2019 he played only 9 out of 14 matches and in 2020 only 5 matches. So, due to lack of game time and game pressure his confidence level has gone down. These are the reasons why I think that Kuldeep is struggling right now.

Yuzvendra Chahal

Not the same case as Kuldeep Yadav. Since he only plays limited overs cricket so he is able to play domestic cricket. He also played all the matches of the last two ipl seasons. But in the recent past he was not consistent with his performances.

#voiceofmyopinion - Currently in the India squad in limited overs cricket there are only a few batsmen who play spinners nicely and can attack. Surya Kumar Yadav, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant are some who can attack on spinners and someone like Washington Sundar is a good player of spin. Yeah, Virat Kohli is a modern day master but currently he is not best in playing spin in T20s and OdIs.

Indian Team Management needs to figure out 4-5 front line spinners and rotate them in such a way that each and every player gets proper game time either in International cricket or Domestic Cricket and this will create a spin attack with lots of variety. Few upcoming spinners who can be match winners are Ravi Bishnoi, Varun Chakravarti and Rahul Chahar.

Thanks!!!

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