India have named five spinners to the 15-member squad for the upcoming Champions Trophy, slated to begin on February 19. The Rohit Sharma-led side will be playing all the matches at Dubai International Cricket Stadium, where spinners don’t often make the headlines. However, India backed Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja for the tournament, where they will play Bangladesh, Pakistan and New Zealand in the league stage.
Reflecting on India’s selection, legendary spinner Ravichandran Ashwin noted that the team might be carrying too many spinners. He noted that opener Yashasvi Jaiswal shouldn’t have been left out and believes that three or a maximum of four spinners would have been ideal but five might be too many, especially in Dubai.
“I don’t understand why we are taking so many spinners to Dubai. Five spinners, and we’ve left out Yashasvi Jaiswal? Yes, I understand that we take three or four spinners for a tour, but five spinners for Dubai? I’m not sure. I feel we have one or maybe two spinners too many in the squad,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
‘My question is, do you expect the ball to turn in Dubai? During the recent ILT20, we saw that the ball didn’t turn much in Dubai, and teams were easily chasing targets of around 180 runs. I’m a little uncomfortable with the team composition,” he added.
Taking about the team composition, Ashwin mentioned that Kuldeep and Varun can be a formidable spin pair but he believes that the team won’t be dropping either Jadeja or Axar, especially after their tremendous performance in the five-match series against England. In case, the Men in Blue decide to play four spinners, one of the pacers will be dropped from the playing XI, and noted that Hardik Pandya will be the second seamer. However, the chances of that looks bleak at the moment.
