Cricket

Bangladesh will pose a tougher spin challenge to India than Australia and England

August 29, 2024
Atreyo Mukhopadhyay
Bangladeshi players celebrating a wicket. Source (X)

Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann, Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir. Do these names ring a few bells? They may not, unless one is a hardcore cricket follower. These are spinners, unheralded and mostly uncapped, before coming to India, who troubled the home team batters in their own conditions in the marquee Test series played in this country in 2023 and 2024.

Against Australia last year and England earlier this year, Indian batters struggled against this nondescript bunch. Murphy of Australia and England’s Hartley returned seven-wicket hauls. Australia’s Kuhnemann and Bashir of England bagged fifers. They helped their teams inflict defeats on the hosts, although India did win both series in the end.

Why mention this? It’s because India are up against Bangladesh in a two-Test series starting next month. Not that the eastern neighbours are real movers and shakers in the ICC World Test Championship table, but they are well equipped as far as spin bowling is concerned. It suggests that Indian batters will face a tougher spin challenge in home conditions than they have in a long time.

Bangladesh possess an impressive pace battery all right, but their core strength in bowling is spin. They have a variety of them, mostly finger spinners, left-arm and right-arm. They are seasoned, well versed with the technicalities of bowling in the sub-continent. They are effective as well. In the Test they won against Pakistan in Rawalpindi a few days ago, spinners accounted for seven wickets in the home team’s second innings, which folded for a total of 146 in perfect batting conditions.

And coming back to Indian batters, a star-studded Mumbai XI featuring Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Sarfaraz Khan and Musheer Khan was found struggling against Tamil Nadu XI’s spin attack in the Buchi Babu Trophy. Indian batters, in general, have been caught wanting against inexperienced spinners in Test cricket in India and abroad. There has been a lot of talk about this specific shortcoming. Given that a couple of the batters named are Test probables, the picture is clear.

For some reason, which is still to be deciphered and addressed, Indian batters have not done well against spin of late. A bit longer than of late, to be true. Be it limitations in footwork or the right prod-forward technique to smother turn or a lack of confidence in general — something has crippled these batters against spin, any kind of it, not necessarily of very high quality. The Australian and English spinners hardly had any experience of first-class cricket, forget Test cricket.

In fact, India’s travails against spin is not limited to red-ball cricket. In the ODI series in Sri Lanka earlier this month that the tourists lost 2-0, Rohit Sharma’s team lost 27 wickets to Sri Lankan spinners.

Against this backdrop, Bangladesh will, in all likelihood, be the strongest spin unit to play a Test series in India in recent years. Their strength in this department is well documented. They have beaten many teams including Australia and England on their own turf powered by spin. There are so many of them that taking names is an exercise in venturing into the limitless. They have the skills and guile to challenge the best of batters. And they have proven this on a number of occasions.

India will obviously not roll out turners in Chennai and Kanpur, where the Tests are to be played. They should be aware of the perils of that ploy, having lost Tests against Australia in Indore and England in Hyderabad. Both times, those pitches assisted spin and the home team batters failed to adjust. But, Chennai and Kanpur have been spin-friendly venues in recent years. Bangladesh will be happy that these matches are taking place in these centres.

Looking at the WTC table — India on top and Bangladesh seventh — this appears to be a no-contest before a ball has been bowled. But, once the ball starts spinning, it could be a tougher test than the fans might be anticipating. India’s batters will have to be at their best to complement their own spinners in order to complete the task.

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