Pick your best Indian spinners

[Arjun]

Given India's struggles with their spinners, I strongly believe India are not playing their best spinners in their frontline team. There's no way Ojha and Ashwin should be playing as frontline spinners, and there's no way part-time spinners can be carried in a team whose bowling is a weakness and spin, a relative strength. There's no way Amit Mishra, Murali Kartik and Iqbal Abdulla can be kept out so long. We would, however, be pleased if Harbhajan is in wicket-taking form again. Just whom would you pick as India's best spinners?

[AndyZaltzHair]

Not sure how Harmeet Singh doing domestically? Very young but worth a try maybe

[Cevno]

Hasn't even gotten into Mumbai's side. Probably needs to change sides.

[shankar]

There aren't any good spinners around in domestic cricket for some time. The cupboard is bare.

[Jono]

Its Ojha and Ashwin. Just gotta accept it.

[Contra]

There are spinners worth giving a chance in place of Ashwin purely in terms of test match bowling, but Ashwin's batting counters that. IMO they should really start focusing on Ashwin as a test match all rounder, he doesn't have it in him to play as the frontline spinner.

[morgieb]

Originally Posted by Jono

Its Ojha and Ashwin. Just gotta accept it.

Yeah, although Ashwin is ordinary against good sides he's still a fairly valuable player to have.

[Burgey]

Chandra, Kumble, Bedi, Prasanna

[Cevno]

There are a few good spinners around tbh. Nadeem, Bhatt, Abdullah, Harmeet, are the names that come to mind first.

But bloody hell the domestic circuit is being dominated by left arm spinners right now. Every team seems to have one. And there are like 8/9 who are doing reasonably well.

Leg Spinners and Offies not having the best of time.

Vijay Dahiya tweeted that Sarabjit Ladda was the best leggie probably right now in India.

[hendrix]

When Robin Peterson is part of the "best attack in the world", it provides a little bit of context. Is spin bowling really the issue at hand?

I really think the incumbents are being underrated here. Ojha is good. Sure, he's no Herath or Ajmal, but he'd walk into most non subcontinent sides. As for Ashwin, he's a handy second spinner. You wouldn't pick him as first choice, but he offers good variation and will develop consistency. Put them behind Umesh Yadav and some of the promising young fast bowlers (I really like the look of B Kumar) and they'll be far more effective.

[CricAddict]

Originally Posted by Cevno

There are a few good spinners around tbh. Nadeem, Bhatt, Abdullah, Harmeet, are the names that come to mind first.

Cevno, Both Abdullah and Harmeet are not even selected into their state side now. Ankeet Chavan gets selected ahead of them and he is proving his worth as well. Deserves a mention in this thread.

[Cevno]

Abdullah still makes that team when Powar's out but is injured right now, i think. Is a better LO bowler anyway.

Harmeet i rate highly for FC and he would get into the team right now, if he wasn't injured too. Dabholkar is playing this match,

Ankeet Chavan, i agree has been impressive along with some other left arm spinners.

[Cevno]

Harmeet should really change teams, if he can.

With the amount of hype he had behind him after the U19 WC would have been in India contention strongly had he done decently for any other team.

[cricmahanty]

I'll be keeping my eyes on Shahbaz Nadeem, the Jharkhand skipper. Haven't seen him bowl enough but telling only from limited experience, he can develop into a good test match bowler if nurtured well.

As for the Ashwin/Ojha duo, I'm glad that people now realise how Ojha is a more reliable option of the two. Ashwin bullying WI and NZ batsmen at home had made people think of Ojha as sort of secondary, or a more run-containing defensive bowler. Ashwin needs to concentrate more on his stock delivery rather than his carrom-balls and other variations. In test match cricket, you'll have to think proactively what the batsman has in mind. And currently, Ashwin doesn't seem to be doing that well enough. He's very inaccurate with his lengths too.

[Arjun]

Originally Posted by cricmahanty

I'll be keeping my eyes on Shahbaz Nadeem, the Jharkhand skipper. Haven't seen him bowl enough but telling only from limited experience, he can develop into a good test match bowler if nurtured well.

As for the Ashwin/Ojha duo, I'm glad that people now realise how Ojha is a more reliable option of the two. Ashwin bullying WI and NZ batsmen at home had made people think of Ojha as sort of secondary, or a more run-containing defensive bowler. Ashwin needs to concentrate more on his stock delivery rather than his carrom-balls and other variations. In test match cricket, you'll have to think proactively what the batsman has in mind. And currently, Ashwin doesn't seem to be doing that well enough. He's very inaccurate with his lengths too.

Nadeem has a shout. Hopefully he'll pinch a few against top sides in the quarters and beyond.

We're jumping the gun on Ashwin's place here. Fair, he has to reinvent himself as a Test bowler, fair, he's not the best spinner in India, but he's just had one horror series, and if he can work on what went wrong, he can be at the very least a handy alternative to Irfan Pathan, who's still injured. I wouldn't want him to be bowling fifty overs an innings, as that's catastrophic. Ojha, on the other hand, isn't good enough, and is in only because he's young (as 'young' as Adrian Shankar and Piyush Chawla?) and he's in Dhoni's inner circle. Mishra should never have been dropped for this bloke, and of course, not for Ashwin either. More on Mishy later.