History Suggest One Spinner but Doherty or Lyon?

If Australia believes picking an extra spinner is the solution to overcome Indian batting order then they are a long way off the mark. India has rarely lost at home over the past two decades and when they have succumbed to the foreign team it has been largely due to the fast bowlers.

To be precise, India has lost 16 test matches at home in the last 20 years. Which mean opposition teams have managed to take 20 Indian wickets 16 times? Out of those 16 loses the spinners have only managed to take greater than 7 wickets out of 20 only on 3 instances.  To drill further down, only 1 of the 3 instances has come in the last decade and that was on a pitch which would have made the Chennai dust bowl look like an Adelaide oval on Day 1.

India has only been outdone by pace and even when England played two quality spinners last year; they won the Calcutta test on back of 11 wickets taken between Anderson and Finn.

Australia’s other option is to play the left arm spinner instead of Lyon. This move will only benefit largely due to the fact the India top order are armed with plenty of right handers.  A theory Michael Clarke believes there not much merit in.

“To be honest personally I don’t think it matters too much. Playing against India they are good players of spin and when you have good players of spin it means they are equally comfortable playing against the ball spinning in and leaving “

Contrastingly, the Indian skipper thought playing two off spinners against the left hander Australian top order gives them a benefit. 

“When you have a spinner that takes the bowl away from you he becomes an asset because he can attack the stumps all the time and also be helpful to contain the batsmen when the ball isn’t turning too much”

They are completely different theories but given the result of the test match, Dhoni’s theory is proved to be correct.  Indian spinners took all 20 wickets and only 5 wickets fell to bowlers spinning the ball back in while 15 yielded to the ball spinning away.

Perhaps there is a case for Doherty but history suggest not both. Hyderabad might not be a dust bowl as Chennai with the red clay content unlikely to be seen but be assured the pitch dished out will have turn and to make worst it will be quick turn. If that is the case playing Doherty will rank higher than Lyon. 

The way Clarke addressed the media after the match chances are Australia will cave in to playing the two spinners. A theory that has not worked based on India's defeats at home over the past two decades.

COWAN’S DROP THE TURNING POINT

Ed Cowan dropped catch the game changer

When Bob Simpson was the captain and coach of the Australian teams he would often say “I can understand if the opposition can out bat and out bowl us but we should never be out fielded “

At the end of fourth day’s play when Mike Arthur and co sit down and try find the defining point that changed the course of the match, they should look no further than the dropped catch by Ed Cowan of Bhuvenshwar Kumar. 

 

The lead at the time was only 26 and Dhoni was only on 121. They both went on to add 140 runs and virtually put Australia out of a winning position.We can all speculate but if the lead could have been limited to within the vicinity of 50 odd we still could have gripping test match on our hands.

As it stands thanks largely to the last wicket unbeaten partnership of 52, the lead is pushing up to 50 and the debutant should be admired for his efforts in second innings. At the conclusion of day’s play, Henriques refuse to declare what would be a realistically a decent total in the 4^th innings.

“It’s hard to tell what’s a good total, I would have to say over a 100 or maybe even 150 but you do need a bit of luck to survive out there” 

In cricket sometimes you need to make your own luck and dropping catches isn’t the ideal way to go about it.  Like the old saying goes “catches can win you matches and also lose you some”. Look back over this test had Bob Simpson been the coach perhaps the opportunity would have been taken and the test match still alive.