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KL Rahul admitted India's spin struggles and is open to seeking batting legend Sunil Gavaskar's advice to fix this issue which has been troubling his team for a while now. India's home dominance has been breached in recent years. Back-to-back visits from New Zealand and South Africa to the subcontinent shattered this perception of security. The disastrous run of five consecutive Test losses against this powerful pair reveals the deep and varied problems currently afflicting Gautam Gambhir's squad. While the reasons for this slump are multifaceted and complex, the most glaring vulnerability, team's struggles against spin bowling is the most evident one.
KL Rahul open to seeking Sunil Gavaskar's advice to address India's spin woes
The difficulty in pinpointing the cause of this performance drop was evident when stand-in ODI captain KL Rahul faced reporters. He offered few definitive answers regarding the team’s sudden decline. Nevertheless, Rahul was willing to concede one major point, i.e the team desperately needs to draw upon the wealth of experience from previous eras of Indian cricket, whose players were legendary masters of playing spin.
“I can’t give a definitive answer. All I can say is we have obviously not have been able to play spin bowling well for 2-3 series, and that is something we recognise as batters,” Rahul said on being asked about India's spin struggles at the pre-match press conference.
To find a solution, Rahul pointed to Sunil Gavaskar, a legend actively involved in the Indian media circuit, as a potential source of expertise. Gavaskar’s status as one of the best batters in the history of the sport was cemented by his sensational and nearly flawless technique when facing spin. It is this unique skill set against the turning ball that the current Indian team hopes to learn from.
“We can speak to someone like Gavaskar sir and learn from him, and we’re already trying to find ways how we can play better against spin. That won’t happen overnight, and I don’t know the answer for why we were able to play earlier but not now, there are a lot of reasons for this. But we will just work on how individually we can get better,” Rahul added.
In the recent Test series against South Africa, Proteas spinner Simon Harmer proved to be the specific player India struggled most profoundly against. Harmer finished with 17 wickets across just two matches and was rightly named the Player of the Series. Harmer's success, however, is part of a growing, concerning trend for India. He joins a list of international spinners—including Mitchell Santner, Ajaz Patel, and Todd Murphy—who have not only managed to outfox the home side in India but have also enjoyed incredible, high-wicket-taking performances on the subcontinent pitches, further exposing the home team's struggle against quality spin bowling.
“When this situation comes again in 6-7 months in our series in Sri Lanka, then a home series against Australia, how we can do better and what technical changes we need to make, we’ll individually try to seek answers and try to do better,” he further stated.
We used to play spin better in the past: KL Rahul
Reiterating his desire for guidance, Rahul confirmed that the team would actively look for help from former players. Crucially, the team also retains access to more recent expertise through former teammates like Cheteshwar Pujara. Pujara's technique against spin is considered exemplary, and his absence from the current squad is clearly felt by the present generation of Indian cricketers who need to improve in this critical area.
“We used to play spin better in the past, we’ll reach out to those players, our seniors, and will try to learn,” Rahul signed off.
Rahul will be shouldering a big responsibility of leading the India's pack in the three-match ODI series against South Africa, which is slated to kick off from November 30 at the JSCA stadium in Ranchi.
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