Pace Up Spin

The faster bowlers are potentially more prone to injuries than any other breed of cricketers. So, in case, a Zaheer Khan, or an Irfan Pathan, or an Ajit Agarkar, or an Ashish Nehra gets injured, the Team India selectors are set to find out their replacements, if not for the long run, then definitely for the short run.

So, under the John Wright-Sourav Ganguly regime, Laxmipathy Balaji, Amit Bhandari, Joginder Sharma, Shib Shankar Paul, Gagandeep Singh were tried. Of course, Paul and Singh never got into the final eleven.

In the current Greg Chappell-Rahul Dravid era, the likes of S. Sreesanth and Rudra Paratap Singh are already making their presence felt. At least another, in the form of Vikram Raj Vir Singh, who consistently crossed the hundred and forty kilometres per hour mark in the 2005 Challengers Trophy, can secure a Team India berth any fine morning.

Down the 1990s and into the new millennium, a number of faster bowlers, like Abey Kuruvilla, Bhupinder Singh, David Johnson, Debasish Mohanty, Doddanrasaiah Ganesh, Harvinder Singh, Iqbal Siddiqui, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Paras Mhambrey, Prashant Vaidya, Subroto Banerjee, Tinu Yohannan, Thirunavukkarasu Kumaran, were tried at the highest level with varying degrees of success.

But who are to spin the web? Nikhil Chopra, Rahul Sanghvi and Sunil Joshi did create the odd ripples in the limited overs version, but failed to impress in the Tests. Nilesh Kulkarni, Noel David, Saiarj Bahutule and Utpal Chatterjee were tried and dumped. Only Ashish Kapoor could be persisted with for some time. Venkatapathy Raju and Rajesh Chouhan filled in the numbers in the presence of the killer Karnataka trio - Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad and Anil Kumble.

Now, with Harbhajan Singh going great guns, and the wily Kumble continuing to deliver with guile, the other spinners are being overshadowed.

Murali Karthik gets great purchase out of rank turners, but has proved to be a dead duck on flat pitches. Sarandeep Singh is fast fading into oblivion. Ramesh Powar seems to be a better batter than a bowler.In case the youngsters like Amit Mishra(Haryana), Madhusudan Acharya(Madhya Pradesh), Navdeep Singh(Punjab), Piyush Chawla(Uttar Pradesh), R. Ramkumar(Tamil Nadu), Sourasish Lahiri(Bengal), Yogesh Golwalkar(Madhya Pradesh), fail to make a mark in the seasons to come, Chappell and Dravid may do well to polish the spinning skills of Virender Sehwag in particular, as they have done with the batting acumen of Irfan Pathan; as it is Dinesh Mongia and Sridharan Sriram are currently out of favour. A spinners' academy in the lines of the pacers' academy at Chennai is the need of the hour.