Stats show that spinners have to step up to win/draw matches in SA

[Trichromatic]

One would think that it's upto pacer only and spinners have to just support job, but history suggests that spinners will have to do more than that if Indian team has to win/draw match in SA.

 

Player	Span	Mat	Inns	Overs	Mdns	Runs	Wkts	BBI	BBM	Ave	Econ	SR	5	10
A Kumble (INDIA)	1992-2006	6	12	292.0	93	569	25	6/53	8/113	22.76	1.94	70.0	1	0
Harbhajan Singh (INDIA)	2001-2011	3	6	155.2	19	443	16	7/120	7/195	27.68	2.85	58.2	1	0
Mushtaq Ahmed (PAK)	1998-1998	2	3	96.0	27	215	12	6/78	9/149	17.91	2.23	48.0	1	0
M Muralitharan (SL)	2000-2000	1	2	68.3	17	161	11	6/39	11/161	14.63	2.35	37.3	2	1
HMRKB Herath (SL)	2011-2011	1	2	50.3	14	128	9	5/79	9/128	14.22	2.53	33.6	1	0
Danish Kaneria (PAK)	2007-2007	1	2	65.2	17	141	7	4/105	7/141	20.14	2.15	56.0	0	0

 

 

So, wicketless inning with decent tight economic bowling won't work.

[Texan]

Absolutely. That is why I think we should go with a wicket taking bowler for the Test instead of picking a "safe" spinner. We should have picked Kuldeep.