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Pick your best Indian spinners

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
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?
 

shankar

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

Contra

Cricketer Of The Year
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.
 

Cevno

Hall of Fame Member
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

Hall of Fame Member
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

Cricketer Of The Year
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

Hall of Fame Member
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

Hall of Fame Member
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

School Boy/Girl Captain
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

Cricketer Of The Year
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.
 

Daemon

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Yeah, miles ahead. Just because he doesn't turn the ball a mile, have an attitude and a fancy delivery doesn't mean he's not a solid bowler. He's ordinary no doubt, but definitely the best we can offer at this stage.
 

Cevno

Hall of Fame Member
Ojha is averaging low 21 something, after the England series last year.

Code:
Player 	    Mat 	Inns 	Overs 	Mdns 	Runs 	Wkts 	BBI 	BBM 	Ave 	Econ 	SR 	5 	10
PP Ojha 	7 	13 	391.5 	99 	992 	47 	6/47 	9/165 	21.10 	2.53 	50.0 	5 	0
R Ashwin 	10 	18 	535.2 	85 	1628 	54 	6/31 	12/85 	30.14 	3.04 	59.4 	5 	1
UT Yadav 	9 	16 	247.3 	27 	1040 	32 	5/93 	7/103 	32.50 	4.20 	46.4 	1 	0
Z Khan   	8 	13 	264.5 	51 	775 	21 	4/77 	7/130 	36.90 	2.92 	75.6 	0 	0
VR Aaron 	1 	2 	32.0 	4 	129 	3 	3/106 	3/129 	43.00 	4.03 	64.0 	0 	0
P Kumar 	1 	1 	40.0 	13 	98 	2 	2/98 	2/98 	49.00 	2.45 	120.0 	0 	0
SK Raina 	4 	5 	52.0 	5 	149 	3 	2/58 	2/58 	49.66 	2.86 	104.0 	0 	0
R Vinay Kumar 	1 	1 	13.0 	0 	73 	1 	1/73 	1/73 	73.00 	5.61 	78.0 	0 	0
I Sharma 	9 	14 	302.4 	53 	1044 	12 	2/43 	2/91 	87.00 	3.44 	151.3 	0 	0
S Sreesanth 	2 	2 	65.0 	6 	281 	3 	3/123 	3/123 	93.66 	4.32 	130.0 	0 	0
A Mishra 	2 	2 	81.0 	5 	320 	3 	3/150 	3/150 	106.66 	3.95 	162.0 	0 	0
V Sehwag 	13 	10 	80.2 	4 	251 	1 	1/20 	1/20 	251.00 	3.12 	482.0 	0 	0

I rate Mishra higher than most here, but there is no way you can Drop Ojha right now. Plus Mishra needs to sort himself out to have any chance of coming back.
 
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Daemon

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Ojha was gun when he played for Surrey as well, not sure why Arjun rates him so low.
 

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