Cant play spin?

Yesterday, after India A lost its first 3 wickets to Bryce McGain and ended the day at 180/4, there was a lot of talk of India's inability to play spin.

And the usual breast beating began - batting quality has gone down, "they don't play spin like they once did." etc etc.

So it was with some interest that I looked at the scorecard of the second day's play between India A and Australia A.

Australia 113/8 in 44.5 overs ( RR 2.52)!!!!

But... but.... Australia always scores at 4 runs or more per over.. And they play spin as well as, if not better than the Indians. And they play spin with soft hands.. And they rotate the strike.. And they work on partnerships.. And they target specific bowlers.. and fielders..

So, have the Australians forgotten how to bat?

But.... but.... wasn't Shaun Marsh at the IPL proof positive that there was enough roster depth in the Australian domestic setup to keep the Aussie flag flying for altleast one more generation?

So how does that dovetail with the current capitulation by Australia A?

Or is India's "inability" to play spin a knee jerk reaction?

And for all the talk of India's players using their feet to get to the pitch of the ball etc, here are my two cents

1. Using your feet when the spinner is tossing it up makes sense. But try using your feet when the ball is aimed flat and fast.. And good luck with that!

2. Heavier bats and smaller grounds make using the feet to get to the pitch of the ball irrelevant. Batsmen can swing through the line (or across the line) fully secure in the knowledge that even mis hits will accrue runs.

3. Pad play- anyone remember Jimmy Adams? And does anyone remember the amount of pad play in the 80s and the early 90s? For all the talk of using the feet to the spinners, how often did batsmen, beaten in the flight, thrust their pads out to negate the spinner?

We have had, through the ages, quality players of spin.. But not all 11 of the team were spectacular players of spin.

I mentioned on Soulberry's excellent blog that, because we have been blessed with great depth in spin bowling, the tacit assumption has been that we are great players of spin ( across generations). Which is not necessarily true.

Because, by that logic, the Pakistanis have to be the best players of reverse swing bowling.. But the truth is otherwise!

The new season begins

Day 1 of India's new home season - India A 180/4

Why?

Remember this

The Australians are known not to give an inch to their opposition and they extend their discourtesy out of it too. The quality of bowlers provided by Cricket Australia for the net sessions can be best described as pedestrian. It happened at Melbourne, Sydney and now at Perth. The local officials asked a school boy team from England called as Australian Cricket Experience to bowl in the nets ahead of the third Test.

Interestingly, it isn’t the same when the Australians are practicing. For instance, the home team batsmen batted against high quality Western Australia team bowlers.

Batting coach Lalchand Rajput was left livid with the quality at hand and made no bones of it. “I asked them why do we get such bowlers and they turned around said speak with Cricket Australia. I’ll ask Chetan (Chauhan) to take the matter up. It’s really unfair.”

One of the bowlers was so inept that Sourav Ganguly shooed him away yesterday. It only adds to the workload of the Indian bowlers who have to put in that much extra so that the batsmen get ready. Chauhan said that he’ll speak with the boys first before protesting with CA.

so why in the world are we bending over backwards in accommodating Cricket Australia with an additional tour match prior to the start of the Border Gavaskar Trophy?