DH FILE PHOTOS.
We live in an era of specialisation, and that is prevalent in Indian cricket too, with the current generation of batters solely focused on their primary skill—quite the contrary to the situation from the late ’90s through the 2000s, when batsmen were more adept at more than one skill.
Take a look at the Indian team that has assembled in England for the five‑match Anderson‑Tendulkar Trophy. None of the specialist batters—like Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill and Abhimanyu Easwaran—can bowl even part‑time, meaning all the bowling workload must be shouldered purely by the bowlers themselves. In fact, that’s the case with the next line of batters too—Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar and Ruturaj Gaikwad are all specialists with no secondary skill to offer.
That, however, was not the norm a decade and a half ago, when batting legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina could roll their arms over when required. Tendulkar was such an extraordinarily gifted cricketer that he could bowl off‑spin, leg‑spin as well as medium pace based on the conditions. The Little Master loved his bowling a lot and celebrated taking wickets as much as scoring centuries. He desired to bowl a lot, but injuries stalled his ambitions, eventually limiting him to 46 wickets in the 2000 Tests he played.
Ganguly, with his medium pace, was actually a good all‑rounder during the first half of a celebrated career—bagging 366 Test wickets—before captaincy and age forced him to slow down. In his debut series in England in 1996, apart from scoring a memorable century at Lord’s—his first ever innings in Test cricket—he scalped six wickets, helping India save a Test after being asked to follow on.
Sehwag, too, was a potent bowling option, known to send down rapid off‑breaks that could trouble any batter. His 3/69 at Lord’s in 2002 helped India to a famous victory. More recently, Rishabh Pant has rolled his arm over with useful spin whenever required, and Washington Sundar’s left‑arm off‑spin has given India a potent bowling option in all formats.
In the last five years, however, India’s batting has become so specialised that there is no room for the part‑timer. Not a single specialist batter in the current squad offers a secondary skill. That leaves Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara’s successors with no backup if the bowling attack falters.
The result is that India’s tail—once a useful source of runs and partnership—has become a liability. In the five‑match Border‑Gavaskar Trophy in Australia earlier this year, the lower order contributed just 107 runs across 10 innings; Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc of Australia each scored more runs than India’s Nos 8–11 in that series.
“It’s dangerous,” former India coach Ravi Shastri warned earlier this year. “When your bowlers have to carry all the burden of bowling and batting, any failure in the top seven leaves you completely exposed.”
India’s next series against England begins on June 20 at Leeds. Unless there’s a rethink on selection to accommodate at least one batting all‑rounder, the tail will once again face the ignominy of being a straight‑jacket.