Weekly Sports Newsletter: How T20 leagues will never throw up Test quality spinners

A couple of months back, the Pakan Cricket Board’s very active social media team put out a ‘drool video’ for the fans of fantasy cricket. It had Babar Azam taking up the Saqlain Mushtaq challenge during a training session. The post Pakan team nets contest involving the coach and captain had some learnings, along with the obvious hit and giggle entertainment. Babar would get stumped on the third ball – under pressure to reach the pre-set target, the wily Saqlain would anticipate the world’s top batsman’s thoughtless stepping out of the crease misadventure.

Saqlain vs Babar!@Saqlain_Mushtaq in full flow 😍#WeHaveWeWill#T20WorldCup pic.twitter.com/PC0IvDXdo5
— Pakan Cricket (@TheRealPCB) October 29, 2021
This isn’t the usual lament about falling batting standards with special scorn directed to the present day batting superstars. This is also no irrational judgement based on just-for-laughs training time arm-wrestling of stars separated generations. This was an episode that would tickle the thinking mind, it was a red-flag for the game’s stake-holders.
While the impact of T20 cricket on batsmen – it spoils their technique – and pacers – it increases their workload forcing injuries – has been constantly highlighted, spinners have largely gone unnoticed and unattended. Play T20, bowl flat, be economical, take money, go home. Return for Tests, bowl on crumbling tracks, take wickets, take money, go home.
The recent Test matches in the sub-continent threw up a durbing trend for Sri Lanka and Pakan. Unlike India that had the spinners and pitches to be formidable at home, Sri Lanka and Pakan were found wanting.
Lanka didn’t have spinners in the class of Murali and Herath, for Pakan the problem was deeper. They too didn’t have quality spinners and they also seem to have forgotten the subtle art of pitch-making that offers home advantage. The tracks during the Pakan-Australia series weren’t spin-friendly or diabolical turners, they were purely dead. Not just the spinners, even curators had forgotten the nuance of Test cricket. Beyond the Tests, there were bigger issues.
Blinded the T20 ecosystem’s love for mystery spinners, has the sub-continent turned its back on those conventional sly slow bowlers? In our constant search for the next Rashid Khan or Sunil Narine, spinners with no real Test record against top teams, will we keep giving the breaks to the likes of Varun Chakravarty, bowlers with no real future in the longer version of the sport? And more worryingly since most of the talent-scouting is done T20 franchise-owners, can they be trusted to unearth the next R Ashwin or Ravindra Jadeja?

Back to the Pakan net session, and the Saqlain vs Babar duel, the Sly vs Sharp face-off for the ages. Between smiles and laughs, Saqlain dared Babar to take 12 runs from his over as he shared the exact position of his imaginary fielders. The GOAT offie had a long on and long off on the fence, no protection on the point and square boundary. A cut and pull could get Babar a four, a straight well-connected lofted shot a six.
Before Saqlain’s first ball, Babar talks to the camera about things on his mind – slowness of the pitch, doosra and some banter about him being respectful towards elders. Saqlain is easily not the fittest 45 year-old around. The run-up still has the trademark stutter, the shuffling steps and the side-on approach. His first two balls underline cricket’s popular belief – master spinners might lose sting but not accuracy. Saqlain keeps it just right – not short enough for Babar to exploit the vacant cover region nor full enough for him to take it at half-volley.

Now it’s Saqlain’s turn to share his thoughts with the camera. The conditions aren’t to his liking, the pitch is flat, the ball isn’t spin friendly and Babar hasn’t been adventurous. This is no lament, not the ling of excuses, it isn’t even an anticipatory bail of the possible impending failure. This is cricket’s finest brain analyzing the data, showing that there is more to spin-bowling than turning the ball on a crumbling track.

“The captain is staying in the crease. The ball is wet, so even if I let it go, or give a rip, nothing is going to happen. But I will try to drag him out of the crease bowling wide of the off stump,” says Saqlain, the twinkling eyes betraying the overworking mind. Babar isn’t a uni-dimensional player – he is an old-school batsman with the adaptability to play all formats. He looks for clues from the bowler’s hands but with Saqlain it isn’t easy.
As promised the coach bowls the ball wide. It is also shorter, something he didn’t reveal. Babar dances down the track to meet the ball and send it over long on. Not on Saqlain’s watch. Babar’s wild swing is futile, the ball arrives late. Babar is stumped for 3, nowhere near the target of 12 runs. The old fox celebrates, the young champ lets out a cry of agony. It’s checkmate. Soon there are laughs and hugs.

How Babar hoped, he had someone like Saqlain in his side. Pakan, famous for the last of express pacers, always had world class pioneering spinners. The late Shane Warne, eerie to write that, had a session with Abdul Qadir to learn the finer points of leg-spin. Imran Khan’s love for pacers is known but he was also the biggest supporter of creative wr spinners. Qadir won him several Tests, Mushtaq Ahmed played a big role in the 1992 World Cup. If Mushtaq followed Qadir, Saeed Ajmal filled the Saqlain void. Pakan’s present day national team spinners Nuaman Ali and Sajjid Khan, as was evident in the Tests against Australia, couldn’t hold a candle to Qadir, Mushtaq, Saqlain or Ajmal.
Test match spin bowling needed elaborate set-ups. T20 wickets are easier, the batters take risks and are mostly on attack. In Tests, they have time on hand, they aren’t in a hurry, their brains rarely fade. Getting the edge of the bat placed close to the pad is far more difficult than when it is in the middle of a wild swing. T20 cricket’s most-wanted spinner Rashid’s Test figures against India is Exhibit A. In his 34.5 overs, he went for 154 runs and took 2 wickets, one of them being Ishant Sharma.
Spinners need variations, like Saqlain’s doosra or Ashwin’s carrom ball but they need a plan that would help them go past a defensive batsman offering a dead bat on an unresponsive track. Something that Saqlain did against Babar. He forced him to change his mind, he incited him, he pulled him towards him and stranded him.

Raw pace is common ammunition for both T20 and Test captains, and that’s why franchise owners spend crores on speedsters. Both in India and Pakan, T20 leagues have groomed quality international pacers. What Mumbai India was to Bumrah, Lahore Qalandars are to Harris Rauf and Shaheen Shah Afridi, Pakan’s finest pacers. They have been spotted and groomed Qalandars coach and mentor Aqib Javed. Spinners don’t get such attention or dedicated talent search operations.

Words of praise from #TeamIndia Captain @ImRo45 for the champion bowler @ashwinravi99 👏 👏#INDvSL | @Paytm pic.twitter.com/SKySkSMj13
— BCCI (@BCCI) March 14, 2022
India, at present, have two all-format spinners but what about the bench? UP’s left-arm Saurabh Kumar has been waiting in the wings for a while, he has been in Test squads of late. A classical left-arm spinner, he is rated very highly Bishan Singh Bedi. He is a work in progress who can possibly be an all-format, all-surface spinner.
So like Jasprit Bumrah, will he get the guidance from the best of spin coaches around the world. Who will be his John Wright, Lasith Malinga, Shane Bond? None.
Saurabh went unsold at this year’s auction. He wasn’t worthy to be invested in, instead one franchise, KKR, went for someone who was famous on the Punjab tennis ball cricuit as Narine Jalalabadiya. KKR mentors will be working on him to be the next big mystery spinner. Understandably, the fact that he has no Test future is not their lookout.

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Sandeep DwivediNational Sports EditorThe Indian Express