India bowling coach Morne Morkel has hinted that the team could field three left-arm spinners in the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle, with Ravindra Jadeja, Manav Suthar and Kuldeep Yadav primed to start together. The South African said that despite having the same dominant hand, the three tweakers are quite different from each other, and offer Shubman Gill enough variety to work with.
While Jadeja and Suthar are left-arm orthodox bowlers, Kuldeep’s wrist spin naturally turns the ball in the opposite direction of them, i.e., away from the right-hander. Even between Jadeja and Suthar, the ideas of getting wickets couldn’t be more different. They bowl at similar speeds, but Suthar looks to put high revs on the ball and make it turn and dip,
while Jadeja tries to fool batters with his variations that don’t turn.
“Kuldeep is there, and he’s the attacking sort of bowler and for us, his experience and class can’t look past. So yeah, I think for us they’re all different in their way,” Morkel said on Thursday. “So one (Suthar) turns a bit more, one (Jadeja) is slightly more accurate and I don’t think it’s a (three left-arm spinners) massive concern for us. It’s just how Gill is going to use those guys at certain times. But yeah, I mean in terms of skill they’ve got the skill to get the 20 wickets for us,” he added.
The bigger point of debate for the team is whether they need to pick a fourth spinner. Saransh Jain is a right-arm off-spinner and can add further variety, but that’ll make the team reliant on the spinners to contribute substantially with the bat in the lower order. That toss up is, thus, between Saransh and a specialist batter like Sarfaraz Khan or Dhruv Jurel.
“Traditionally also if you look at the venue how it stacks and how it’s been played up, that’s sort of the way (three spinners) to go I think. The way we go with our spin bowling attack or spinners, it’s a very attacking option. But looking at the surface, you know, to me, looks like a good surface, and I think as the Test goes on, you know, something will start to happen. So, we’ve prepared for all that can come our way, as it is more about the mental challenge in playing these conditions, batting time, bowling those spells and getting the ball in the right areas,” Morkel added.
