Asia Cup 2023: With no Ashwin & no finger spinner, has India missed a trick not exploiting Babar Azam’s and Pakan’s weakness against off-spin? | Cricket News

India and Pakan batters have been traditionally good players of spin bowling. However, off late, the men in green have often been found wanting against off-spin.
In recent years, offspinners such as Michael Bracewell, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, and Mohammad Nabi have succeeded against Pakan batters.
Pakan’s opening duo of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan’s struggle against offspinners has not gone unnoticed. Even the run rates against off-spin tend to go down, and generally, they look to play out the spinners.
Between 2020 and 2022, Babar has scored 221 runs against offspinners at an average of 44.2 and has been dismissed five times. Rizwan has 222 runs at an average of 55.5 but has been dismissed four times. If we look at just 2023 alone, then Babar has been dismissed three times while Rizwan, too, has been dismissed once. In the recent series against the Afghans, Mujeeb and Nabi had consently kept a check and troubled the duo.

Then there is the top order, which features two left-arm batters in the form of Fakhar Zaman and Imam-ul-Haq, and offspinners always enjoy bowling against the southpaws with the ball turning away. In the three ODI’s against Afghanan, Imam was dismissed twice the finger spinners. When New Zealand arrived in Pakan at the beginning of this year, it was Bracewell who had got the better of the duo in the ODI series.
In the middle order, Iftikhar Ahmed and Shadab Khan have also not set the stage on fire. Between 2020 and 2023 (July), Iftikhar’s strike rate against the off-spinners was 83. Shadab, while enjoying a better strike rate of more than 150, has been dismissed four times.Most Read
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Another left-hander in the middle, Mohammad Nawaz, who comes down the order, has a strike rate of just above 80 against offspinners.

So did India miss a trick not even selecting one frontline offspinner in their side, especially with someone like R Ashwin available? Deception in the air and certain variations like the doosra and carrom ball can pose a few problems to the batsmen.
Only time will let us know but as of now India will not be able to exploit this aspect of the game.The only viable option could be Tilak Varma, provided he rolls his arm over. But he is definitely not a frontline spinner and how much impact his right-arm off-breaks can make remains to be seen.