Is Off-Spin dying out in India?

[SecondSlip]

Where are all the off spinners in the domestic circuit? We barely have any left other than 4-5 guys! 
 

We are producing many leggies and left arm spinners but barely any offies nowadays! 

 

Who are the prominent off spinners in india right now? We already have Ashwin playing test cricket for us. But what options do we have as his back up if he is unavailable? 

 

The only ones I can notice are Krishnappa Gowtham, Jalaj Saxena and Jayant Yadav. I’m not counting Washington Sundar because he’s a batting allrounder, not a specialist bowler! 

 

Is offspin fading away in India?

[Vk1]

Good point.. whats the incentive in T20s era.. conventional off spinners could become darters

[SecondSlip]

@express bowling @rkt.india @Mosher @Suhaan @Ankit_sharma03  

 

You guys are the domestic cricket experts of this forum. Do you see any upcoming off spinners in our circuit that have the potential to be World Class!? 

[vvvslaxman]

Gautam is an offie. We need a leggie more. I hope Bishnoi developing into a good leggie

[express bowling]

2 hours ago, SecondSlip said:

@express bowling @rkt.india @Mosher @Suhaan @Ankit_sharma03  

 

You guys are the domestic cricket experts of this forum. Do you see any upcoming off spinners in our circuit that have the potential to be World Class!? 

 

 

Akshay Wakhare is the best I have seen but he is already 35. But have seen him turn the ball square on greenish tracks even.

 

Among the younger lot, the good ones are all wrist spinners.

Edited March 10, 2021 by express bowling

[Vijy]

classical spin is more-or-less dead in the current era. one advantage that wrist spinners have is that they can turn the ball both ways. hence, even if their leggies don't have a big rip, they can compensate by bowling quicker through the air and relying on mixing them up with googlies (see rashid khan, bishnoi, etc). left-arm chinaman has a similar advantage plus the rarity of such bowlers. when it comes to left-arm orthodox, most batsmen in the world are still righties and taking the ball away from them is more potent. this is why these bowlers have survived, but even this breed is declining and tending more toward bowling quick darts.

 

I think what we will need to see from future top-tier offies to be successful in int'l cricket is high pace (low to mid 90s at least), a reasonable number of variations, good control, ability to extract bounce (being tall will help), and so on. if I apply this metric to domestic cricket, I don't see anyone meeting the criteria. as @express bowling has noted, the best of the current bunch are all old. not just wakhare, but also saxena and rassoul. I had quite high hopes for the powar-like amir gani, but he faded away badly in the last 2-3 yrs. there are three issues that concern me about future Indian cricket; this does not mean we are in a bad shape, but we should address them pronto.

(1) young pacers are coming through, but are not being groomed well enough and making the cut to senior squads - only saini & siraj have gotten sporadic chances, and the likes of mavi, prasidh languish.

(2) absence of good young left-arm orthodox and offies. I am less worried about wrist spin because we have kuldeep, bishnoi, rahul chahar, even markandey and the upcoming solanki from mumbai.

(3) absence of reliable test batsmen. I was also concerned with quick scoring and/or power-hitting batters in the past, but the situation is changing (e.g pandya bros, suryakumar, kishan, pant). however, in tests, we need at least 2 accumulators in top 7. kohli can be one for a few years more perhaps, but chepu is clearly in decline. we need 1-2 technically sound and patient accumulators as backups [sundar could be one, but his tempo is quite brisk].

Edited March 10, 2021 by Vijy

[Vijy]

7 minutes ago, MultiB48 said:

When did we have that many off spinners .

we always had quite a few good ones. prasanna-venkat in 70s, yadav in 80s [not good, but steady], bhajji from 90s onward, ashwin in 2010s. and domestic cricket had some good ones that didn't play - hyd alone had naushir mehta, v ramnarayan, and kanwaljit singh. here's a so-so article on the subject:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/v-ramnarayan-when-indian-cricket-was-brimming-with-offies-917899

Edited March 10, 2021 by Vijy

[Vijy]

Just now, MultiB48 said:

So back in 70s we had a few,but since then barely any backups.I remember kanwaljit Singh winning Hyderabad a semifinal..

we had some more that I didn't list. I had edited my post to include the link to the article. naushir mehta was pretty good - excellent FC average. also ghulam ahmed, arshad ayub, M jairam, and so on

[Vijy]

Just now, MultiB48 said:

Another one was gopal Sharma from up

yes, exactly.

[SecondSlip]

@Vijy @express bowling 

How do you guys rate Krishnappa Gowtham?
Do you guys believe he is good enough for test cricket?
Can he step up and do the job for Team India if Ashwin is unavailable?
Similar to how Axar stepped up in Jadeja's absence just recently? 

[express bowling]

3 minutes ago, SecondSlip said:

@Vijy @express bowling 

How do you guys rate Krishnappa Gowtham?
Do you guys believe he is good enough for test cricket?
Can he step up and do the job for Team India if Ashwin is unavailable?
Similar to how Axar stepped up in Jadeja's absence just recently? 

 

 

Did not look like a test match prospect to me a couple of years back.

 

With no Ranji Trophy this year, don't know where he stands now.

[Vijy]

1 hour ago, SecondSlip said:

@Vijy @express bowling 

How do you guys rate Krishnappa Gowtham?
Do you guys believe he is good enough for test cricket?
Can he step up and do the job for Team India if Ashwin is unavailable?
Similar to how Axar stepped up in Jadeja's absence just recently? 

I do not rate him as test prospect. has reasonable accuracy and gets good bounce, but that's about it... not much variations in flight, drift, spin, angles, etc. I rate wakhare, saxena and rassoul higher than gowtham, but all are oldies and I don't think they can step up and replace ashwin.

[Ankit_sharma03]

4 hours ago, SecondSlip said:

@Vijy @express bowling 

How do you guys rate Krishnappa Gowtham?
Do you guys believe he is good enough for test cricket?
Can he step up and do the job for Team India if Ashwin is unavailable?
Similar to how Axar stepped up in Jadeja's absence just recently? 

 

No current off spinner in india comes close to ashwin bowling skill .... No one

[SecondSlip]

BUMP. 
 

With Ashwin’s test career almost over (According to @Gollum ), who are the young off spinners in ranji trophy? 
 

Surely Washington Sundar can’t be the only option? He is not even a front line spinner. He is a batting allrounder for goodness sake!

[rkt.india]

Most Ranji teams these days prefer left arm spinners. There are hardly any off spinners playing regularly and performing in domestic cricket 

[zen]

If you need rank turners to look impressive, off and left arm spin could lose its lustre. Leg and mystery spinners could hold more value. 

[rkt.india]

4 minutes ago, zen said:

If you need rank turners to look impressive, off and left arm spin could lose its lustre. Leg and mystery spinners could hold more value. 

That's not the reason. Left arm spinners provide control in FC. They are preferred more over off and leg spinners. 

[zen]

Just now, rkt.india said:

That's not the reason. Left arm spinners provide control in FC. They are preferred more over off and leg spinners. 

 

Who cares? If there is nothing in the pitch, these guys are usually toothless.

[rkt.india]

20 minutes ago, zen said:

 

Who cares? If there is nothing in the pitch, these guys are usually toothless.

They are all useless if there is nothing in the pitch. Even as a wrist spinner, you can't be like amit mishra, chawla, Rashid Khan, chahal etc to have test or FC success. There is a reason left arm spinners are so successful. They have control and a bit of spin make them much more difficult to face for right handers than a wrist spinner who sprays it around.

 

In fact, wrist spinners in test cricket have gone extinct.

Edited September 9, 2021 by rkt.india

[Vickydev]

Saurabh Kumar from UP is the best finger spinner we have in domestic cricket. Dont think there are many others..Wakhare is too old, there is Jalaj Saxena who can bat and throw in the legs breaks as well( closest to Ashwin in that regard)

 

But then Axar is already doing well as soon as he has come in. Shows good control over the orthodox and the wrong one. We should be fine at home if he continues to do as well