Who should be our spinner in Aus, as we will only play 1

[anish233]

both have to play.. but if one.. itll have to be ashwin. the bounce factor, as well as the batting ..

[vamos_rafa]

scg is a grassy track nowadays' date=' not how it used to be before. nature of the pitch was changed intentionally in 2009.[/quote'] In 1999, there was this one-dayer, at SCG, between India and Australia when India got all out for 100 and Australia lost 6 wickets while chasing 100!! That pitch was insanely green.

[skindia]

I think india should play zaheer ishant varun umesh full pace attack...we dont have kumble so spinners are useless in australia..

[vamos_rafa]

I think india should play zaheer ishant varun umesh full pace attack...we dont have kumble so spinners are useless in australia..

One spinner is essential. Umesh and Varun are more or less the same bowlers. Also, although the pitches may not assist the spinners, yet there is this inherent weakness of the Aussies against the spinners which we need to capitalize upon.

[cowboysfan]

both these guys can bowl long spells and keep it tight but Ashwin can bat and can out think batsmen if there is some assistance from the pitch.

[skindia]

one legspinner should have been there...off spinners struggles in australia...chandana and kumble did well there..even muralitharan is failure there..

[fineleg]

Maybe they will take decisions after observing warmup matches in Aus conditions. Wicket taking ability is the primary selection criteria - batting merely secondary.

[ganeshran]

For the first two tests Ashwin. After seeing his performance we can judge better how he would do in the latter part of the series

[The Outsider]

Should go with Ashwin - yeah off spinners have not done too well in Australia, but maybe he can break the trend. The primary consideration for me is the presence of so many left handers in the Australian batting line up.

[BeautifulGame]

Ashwin for the first two tests atleast. Yes off spinners havent done well in Australia.But then this Aus isnt as good as the ones gone by.So hopefully Ashwin can break the trend.

[kubrickian]

[gsivak]

I think Ashwin's batting gives him an edge over ojha (who is a slightly better bowler than Ash) but honestly I wouldn't care either ways. Both are good so the spinner who plays better in the warm up games should be given a chance in the first test.

[Ram]

I’d go with Ojha. Aswhin may have more variations in his bowling, but I think Ojha is fundamentally the better spinner. He has better control and can be both attacking and defensive depending upon the need of the situation. Aswhin does not seem to have that skill (yet). Plus, Aswhin is still a green-horn in tests. Even in the Windies series, he routinely bowled long-hops on either side of the stumps that got punished. Yes, he was taking a lot of wickets, but they were coming at a price. If you consider this and the fact that, most of the time our spinner will be expected to hold one end up rather than pick wickets, i think Praghyan should get the nod ahead of Aswhin .

[Bumper]

This is a no-brainer. Ashwin for me is the obvious choice. You guys are all excited about Ojha. But i doubt he will be able to replicate his performance against good teams. I still consider Ojha an ordinary spinner - no don't compare him with Bhajji, anyone can better Bhajji in his current form. Need to see him against better teams before am sold. Ashwin, however is a rare breed, he has nerves of steel. He is the kinda cricketer I would back even if he fails several times. He is street smart and will find a way to succeed at every level against all comers. And to his credit, he simply refuses to fail. His carrom ball is a surprise weapon against Australians (who are not comfortable against such variety) In terms of batting, Ashwin trumps everyone else. In Australia this will be a very important asset (esp with a weak #6) for the team. India has produced many tailenders who have been effective (Zaheer, Bhajji, Ishant et al have scored runs), but few had the technique of Ashwin. He looks like a top order bat playing on drives, late cuts and all. You have to go back to Irfan Pathan or an Ajit Agarkar to find as good a lower order batsman as him. After years of destruction, IPL has finally helped unearth a gem. Hope Ashwin values test cricket as much as we do.

[VRV Singh]

Maybe they will take decisions after observing warmup matches in Aus conditions. Wicket taking ability is the primary selection criteria - batting merely secondary.

Yes, but you have to be pragmatic as well. Dropping Harbhajan leaves India a little bare down the order. From what we have seen Ashwin can offer quite a bit in this regard. India's tail could well be: Ashwin Zaheer Praveen Ishant Even if you have a rabbit like Yadav there instead it is still strong, with the nightwatchman a solid no.11. The value of these guys has been seen on a few occasions now. All points to Ashwin at this stage. Duncan Fletcher could not get enough of Ashley Giles and the fecker got nowhere near a Test hundred.

[Bumper]

I can't believe so many people here are sold on Ojha based on his exploits against weak teams. Ojha relies primarily on conventional tools such as flight/deception/pace/turn to pick wickets. Very few off-spinners succeed in the long run with just that. Off-spinners have to innovate or they'll perish with time. Part of the reason why Bhajji has been a passenger the last few years (and Panesar is a goner). Good batting lineups learn to adapt to such conventional spinners sooner or later and hence such spinners lose their potency with time. The best off spinner in the world today is Saeed Ajmal (I reckon, better than Swanny!). He's so hard to pick, even Tendulkar struggled against him. Ajmal has a very potent doosra and he bowls that with virtually no change in action. Even Murali became twice the bowler he was only after he added his doosra. Ashwin's carrom ball is unconventional. If he uses it wisely he will keep the batsmen guessing. Only when such doubts are planted in a batsman's mind, he will make mistakes. IMHO, Ojha has to innovate, otherwise he won't be playing two years from now.

[orasparkle]

At the start of the series, Ashwin will be preferred over Ojha. Later, it depends on Ashwin's performance.

[Sachin=GOD]

Ashwin.

[The Dark Horse]

Ashwin of course

[vvvslaxman]

can't really choose between two. But i have to say Ashwin bowls more wicket taking deliveries than Ojha. In Australia only thing that goes against Ashwin is history of offies. But that should not be a reason not to play a spinner there. He has played there before in emerging tournament along with Mishra. But he was little raw then.