Sports
Will India play two finger spinners in the eleven? (Comment)
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By Veturi SrivatsaWhy Harbhajan Singh’s return to India Test squad after two years has
lead to such hairsplitting arguments? Theories abound, some even
propounded his selection a conspiracy following the regime change in the
Indian cricket board. Some others see it a pure and simple ‘Thank you’
with one last Test to help him call it a day.
Harbhajan has
thrashed at least one theory, the golden-handshake. At 34 he thinks he
still has four-five years of cricket left in him, and in all formats at
that. Good for his confidence.
It was chief selector Sandeep
Patil who triggered the debate with his clever explanation on
Harbhajan’s selection. Good, the new dispensation in the board has
decided to allow media interaction after the selection committee
meeting. Secretary Anurag Thakur fielded some questions to give Patil
some breather to compose his thoughts. A welcome departure from the past
when any talk with the media by anyone connected with the board was
frowned upon. Even the great men of Indian cricket preferred to be
treated like bonded labour.
Patil predictably stated that two
off-spinners were needed seeing six left-handers in the Bangladesh
batting order. The operative part of his remark was that it was
“discussed with the captain.â€
He went on to clarify that
Harbhajan was not an automatic, write a few others were also discussed
and the “captain felt this was the right choice for this particular
tour.†One can draw one’s own conclusions, but it would be interesting
to know what the selectors thought of Pervez Rasool as an understudy.
The moot point is will both the Ashwin and Harbhajan be playing the
eleven? When did we last wee two front-ranked finger spinners playing
for India in a Test?
It is not as if Harbhajan has exploded on
domestic scene with some extraordinary performance to merit a recall for
the lone Test from June 7-10. If anything, he would not have qualified
to be picked on the basis of his showing in any national level
tournament in the last two years. But then the flip side of the argument
will be that someone like Harbhajan has nothing to prove at the highest
level. With 413 wickets in 101 Tests under his belt, everything stacked
up there cereberally. Yet, he has to show some decent numbers in the
wickets column whenever he bowls. Or, was he picked on the basis of his
Indian Premier League (IPL) showing.
Conspiracy theory: It is
unfair to both Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his successor Virat Kohli to
accuse them of picking their favourites, the former captain his Chennai
Super Kings teammate Ravindra Jadeja and now Kohli plumping for
Harbhajan because of the proximity.
During his hey day, Harbhajan
in Sourav Ganguly’s regime could do anything he wanted with his bowling
arm and was unplayable on pitches at home. Like all successful
off-spinners he was also troubled by those funny degrees of bent arm and
was told to discard his doosra. Again, like the other illustrious
bowlers of his tribe, he also struggled to get the rhythm back with the
chief weapon out of his armoury. That affected his wicket-taking ability
and he chose containment as a ploy, waiting for the batsmen to make
mistakes. That didn’t work.
He played his last Test two years ago
and since then he just played 11 first-class matches, three of those
last season, bowling 284.1 overs for his 30 wickets at an average of
28.97 with a 56.83 strike rate. Not good at all.
Jadeja, too
earned his spurs as a small time all-rounder when there were none to be
found. For that matter Harbhajan and the No 1 offie today Ravichandran
Ashwin proved better all-rounders than Jadeja. If Jadeja has two triple
centuries in domestic cricket, Harbhajan and Ashwin have two Test
hundreds each.
It would be grossly unkind to condemn Jadeja, who
is brilliant in the field. He retained his position with some stunning
work as a bowler in India’s victories, particularly in the series
against Australia. Come to think of it, he dismissed Australia’s best
batsman against spin, Michael Clarke five of the six times he batted.
Jadeja
had an unbelievably great series with 24 wickets in the 4-0 series win
against Australia at home. His bowling suffered in the run-up to and in
the 2015 World Cup because of a shoulder injury. Curiously, Harbhajan’s
decline, too, started following an injury on the last tour to England.
Patil
clarified that performance and fitness were the only criteria in
selecting the squad with no emotions attached. That is clearly evident
with the selectors not making any large-scale tinkering. There was
little scope, too with none of the stalwarts opting for or given rest
despite living out of suitcases for a year.
A pat for the
selectors for retaining leg-spinner Karn Sharma in the Test squad and
left-arm Axar Patel in the ODI and also Mohit Sharma and Dhawal
Kulkarni, recognising their intrinsic worth.