While scrolling through India’s squad for the forthcoming five-Test tour of England, the eyes were focused on one name – Arshdeep Singh. As always, a volley of questions gushed back and forth in the mind about the reasons behind his selection. Is Arshdeep a good enough option for the longest format? What are the salient features of his bowling that made the selectors plump for Arshdeep for the England tour?
To gauge Arshdeep’s skill set, it is better to pore through some of his noteworthy performances with the new ball in the shortest format. One of them came in the South Africa-India ODI at the Wanderers last year. It just took him a couple of deliveries to make an impression: From over the wicket, the delivery pitched in on an and around middle-stump and snaked away from an unsuspecting Reeza Hendricks to beat the outside edge. The keynote of that offering was the trajectory of the ball as it moved late in the air and then off the deck.
The very next delivery he castled Hendricks with the one that moved back in enough. All that the batter could do was trudge back to the pavilion with a quizzical look on his face. Those two incisive deliveries are enough to judge the fact that when Arshdeep finds movement, he generally gets it to go late. And then you complement it with his left-arm angle, you have just added another weapon to his quiver. Now, one can envisage why the Indian think tank have trusted Arshdeep to leave his imprint on the England tour.
However, on the downside, for a while he seemed to be searching for the inswinger. In fact, during the 2025 Champions Trophy, the left-arm pace bowler focused on finding the missing inswinger during the net sessions. To his credit, he has bowled a few more inswingers during the ongoing IPL.
There is one more aspect of Arshdeep’s long-format game that needs some scrutiny. Does he have the required artillery to trouble the batters with an older ball? To dissect Arshdeep’s old-ball traits and bowling smarts, we can transport ourselves back to the Duleep Trophy game played between India A and India D in Anantapur last year.
On a track that was assisting the seamers just enough, Arshdeep did dislodge Riyan Parag in the 17th over. He picked up just one more wicket during the innings, and that was of Kumar Kushagra. Interestingly, it was a change in angle that did the trick for Arshdeep as he shifted to a round-the-wicket angle and tempted the batter to slice one to the gully fielder.
The subplot to Arshdeep going round the wicket is that Khaleel Ahmed, the left-arm pacer, is perhaps slightly better at inducing the batters into making mistakes from that angle. It is true that Arshdeep does generate a hint of reverse swing, but in England he may not always get an opportunity to find old-ball swing.
The selectors have reposed their faith in Arshdeep. The rationale could be Arshdeep’s swing-bowling attributes seem to be a notch above Yash Dayal and Khaleel, the other two left-armers who were in contention. He also has some county experience, having played for Kent. Only time will reveal whether the selectors’ decision to pick Arshdeep was the right one.