[Bahnz]

Originally Posted by Flem274*

1) Murali took most of his wickets against the tail.
2) Murali again got the tail. Herath took a bag but not before we made 397.
3) We scored 459, and Ojha's 4/107 included Hopkins and Watling.
4) Harby got 4fer 70 odd, but we still scored 350, and following it up with 448.
5) Sharma won them the series. Ojha got the tail out in the first innings and harby did bowl well in the second dig. I remember that game vividly.

I'm not saying spinners don't take any wickets against us, if you bowl the most overs you're going to accumulate wickets eventually. I'm saying they don't hurt us anything like the pacers do.

Watching our lot play. they are much more competent against spin than seam. The very best spinners like Swann and Ajmal will no doubt hurt us, but average run of the mill spinners don't scare us at all.

I've never seen Narine so he may well be the second coming of Murali, but Windies domestic pitches are spin friendly and he is yet to debut so it's a big call to prepare pitches especially for him and Shillingford. Green them up and let the seamers loose. Sammy and Rampaul have been doing the business for the Windies and Roach will hopefully turn up more often as well.

Our best batsmen are all better against the spinners than the quick stuff. McCullum, Taylor and Williamson are all poke around prone early on against quality pace bowling whereas to my eye they're much more comfortable starting against spin.

In saying all this I don't think a pace friendly series is likely at all. They will either be turners or flaaaaat, so both spinners on both sides will probably get a lot of overs.

Nah, I'd say we're equally poor against each. Guptill is a poor batsman of any kind of spin bowling. McCullum has the technique, but not the brains to score against them consistently. Taylor and Williamson are decent players of spin both, though the former has a habit of getting out playing daft shots, and the later is so new to the game that it's hard to know how he'd cope on genuine turners.

Shillingford and Narine both seem like decent spin bowlers, at least in conditions that suit them. If the pitches take turn I reckon we'll struggle to post decent totals. Having said that, I think our batting will struggle to post runs on pacy pitches as well, especially if we go in with five specialist batsmen and Vettori. The Windies start huge favourites for mine, regardless of what the surfaces are like.