In the words of Rahul Dravid, it's a four-letter word that starts with 'S' and it is thundering out of the tunnel with its headlights blazing bright. As India get ready to welcome Australia for another bout of Test cricket at home in what is their final, most marquee assignment in this cycle of the World Test Championship, 'spin' is once more the all-encompassing narrative hog. How much and how early in the game will the pitches offer turn? How are the visitors bracing? Is there a risk of a Pune-esque backfire?
A lot of it is conjecture. Then there is the question of which spinners will actually hold stage when the battle begins in a couple of days' time in Nagpur. And India quite clearly have options to go around. Ravichandran Ashwin, one of India's greatest players of this generation, is a lock. As is Ravindra Jadeja, Test cricket's top-ranked all-rounder, despite having only just returned from a major knee injury. India also have a decision to make with the identity of their third spinner, that is if the pitch accords them a luxury of a third spinner: Axar Patel or Kuldeep Yadav?
In the recent Mirpur Test, Dravid and the leadership group were faced with a similar dilemma of having to pick one of these two and they went with Axar despite Kuldeep marking his comeback in only the previous Test at Chattogram with a career-best 5 for 40. It was a selection based on sound reasoning and not one dictated by emotions. It's hard to even nitpick when a bowler has the kind of sub-continent record that Axar possesses: 47 wickets from 8 Tests at a frankly ridiculous average of 14.29 including five five-fors.
Source: https://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/125417/will-indias-transient-batting-dictate-spin-bowling-combination
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