Former India spinner Murali Kartik has expressed concern over the lack of depth in the quality of spin bowlers in India.
Team India has always had a strong arsenal of spin bowlers. However, the performance of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal has not been up to the mark in the white-ball format and has raised concerns over the spin-bowling department of Virat Kohli-led side.
On the other hand in Test cricket after R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, the upcoming stock of spin bowlers in India appear slightly bleak.
Talking about the same former Indian spinner Murali Kartik feels that Indian spinners no longer possess the same art or threat as the ones India's previous generations of spinners possess.
Speaking on The Last Wicket podcast, former Indian spinner Murali Kartik recalled the legendary Bishan Singh Bedi's words that a spinner is someone who simply 'spins the ball'. He added that judging by these criteria, the skills of spinners have only gone 'downhill'.
"There are a few issues regarding this. See the quality or skill-wise, you see spin in a certain way. A spinner, as I was told when I first learned spin from Bishan Bedi, was a man that spins the ball.
That's the first thing. The art of spin bowling is about pricing out wickets. For that, if you look at skills over the years, it's only been going downhill," Murali Kartik said on The Last Wicket podcast.
Kartik further said that Team India no longer has the type of spinners they had during the previous eras.
"Things have changed and with that, the quality has dropped drastically. So if you ask me do we have the kind of spinners which we had, no. As I said, it's only been going down.
“And I've always said that many former spinners, who used to look at us when we were playing, would have been turning in their graveyards - what are these bowlers? Horrible bowlers,” he said.
(The Last Wicket podcast inputs)
