marc71178 said:
I think most people would agree that's because the standard of FC Cricket in India is not the greatest?
This much is true to an extent IMO, though it's not as bad as in Pakistan or England.
Why, however, is another question. The only answer is there is simply not the mindset - no problems with attitude, like in England, that's unthinkable - just the problem of getting youngsters to bowl seam-up. If you listen to some people, 1 in 2 youngsters wants to be Tendulkar or Laxman, the the other wants to be Harbhajan Singh or whichever spinner is currently top of the public admiration role.
The giveaway fact in England is that there are so few batsmen averaging over 40 season-in-season-out, yet neither are there bowlers averaging under 27. The odd one, yes, but you'd expect it to be one way around. In Pakistan, there are plenty of bowlers with good strike-rates, but too many with over-expensive economy-rates. In India, at least it's biased in favour of getting batsmen who average 50 all over everywhere.
But until India start producing some seamers who can exploit the conditions - Kapil Dev and Srinath are just about the only ones in the last 20 years to do it with any consistency (even they averaged over 29 in their Test-careers) - they will probably continue to struggle.
It could be argued that pitches turn too much at times and rarely (if ever in some cases) offer movement off the seam. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan have always been spin-dominated countries, and to try to change that would be a combination of an act of vandalism and a hopeless case, but you must have
some variation.
The same problem has been encountered in England with too much help for seamers in the '90s (the last 2 seasons it's been the opposite - not enough help for them) and will soon, in my view, be encountered in Australia with not enough help for seamers or spinners.
The key to producing a high standard is to have
some variation in the typical conditions. In Sri Lanka, India etc. there should and very probably will always be more help for spinners than any other bowler. But you need just a bit of alternative, just to keep everyone alert to all possibilities.