Former cricketer-turned-commentator Sanjay Manjrekar has pointed out that Indian spinners R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are more focused on the economy rather than picking wickets and wants them to be more aggressive in their upcoming games at the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 in UAE.
India played Ravindra Jadeja and Varun Chakravarthy as specialist spinners against Pakistan in their opening match of the tournament which they lost by 10 wickets and the tweakers went wicketless.
India has two more spinners to choose from in Ravichandran Ashwin and Rahul Chahar but it's unlikely that either will get a game on Sunday when India faces New Zealand in a must-win clash in Dubai on October 31.
“Ashwin, like Jadeja, is not a wicket-taker. Both are more focused on the economy than wickets. I believe in T20s, the spinners’ job is to get wickets and be the game-changer in the middle,” Manjrekar reckoned.
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“The big concern for me is India’s bowling. I know there is merit in the thought that you must back your players after their failures, especially in T20s, but this is easier to do when you are playing a long season of the IPL and not when a couple of defeats mean all chances of winning the World Cup are down the drain.
What was glaring about India’s defeat was how none of the bowlers looked like they would take wickets. The only way India had a chance of winning the game was by taking wickets regularly,” Manjrekar wrote in his column for Hindustan Times.
Manjrekar actually suggested having Jadeja as the third spinner-all-rounder who can bowl a few overs instead of his 4 full overs.
“Jadeja can be your third spinner who will bowl a few overs and not someone you depend on to bowl his full quota of four overs. He has done that only a little more than 50% of the times in T20Is, and he certainly can’t be one of your five bowling options. But for that, India MUST feel that Jadeja can replace a batter in the playing XI and then be your 6th bowling option,” he added.
(Hindustan Times inputs)
