Team India have had their struggles against spin bowling for a while with the most recent evidence of that failure being evident during the recently concluded ODI series against Sri Lanka. In Gautam Gambhir’s maiden series as ODI coach, team India had failed to win a single match as spin played a major role in the slow and turning tracks in Colombo.
In the wake of the Men in Blue’s persistent failure against spin bowling, questions have been raised as to why a team that once dominated the spinners seems to have lost its way on slower tracks. Former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag, who was known to slog the spinners, spoke about the inability of Indian batsmen to play the spinners and suggested why the generation of Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly were better at playing the spinners.
Virender Sehwag reveals reason for India’s decline in playing spin:
In an interaction with Amar Ujala, Sehwag said, “One reason for this is that the more white ball cricket there is, the less spinners will come, because in T20 cricket you bowl 24 balls and do not flight them, so you do not develop the skill to get the batsman out. I think that could be one reason. Indian players also play less domestic cricket. In domestic cricket you get to play more spin than in international cricket. So that can also be a reason. I think there are no quality spinners in India right now whom I see who can fly well and take wickets,”
“In our time, Dravid, Sachin, Ganguly, Laxman, Yuvraj, all of us used to play domestic cricket too, whether it was ODI or four-day cricket, we used to play a lot of domestic cricket. We used to play a lot of spinners in those matches, but in today’s busy schedule, players are getting less time. There are different leagues, due to which the skill of playing spin is not being developed by the players.” the former cricketer added