{"id":435807,"date":"2026-02-20T08:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T08:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/435807\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T08:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T08:53:10","slug":"with-so-many-left-handers-finger-spin-is-the-problem-india-coach-sounds-alarm-before-super-8-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/435807\/","title":{"rendered":"‘With so many left-handers, finger spin is the problem’: India coach sounds alarm before Super 8 | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'With Ahmedabad: India may have ended the league phase of the World Cup unbeaten, but there are a few glitches they need to iron out before taking on much stronger sides in the Super 8 stage. India\u2019s catching has been below par, but the most glaring shortcoming has been their batters\u2019 failure to dominate spin, a concern that has also contributed to their home Test defeats in recent years. Two major reasons India have been bogged down by rival spinners\u2014especially off-spinners\u2014have been the presence of so many left-handers in the lineup and the poor form of explosive opener Abhishek Sharma<\/a>, who has registered three consecutive ducks.<\/p>\n

How Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma are hurting India | T20 World Cup<\/p>\n

So far in the tournament, India have faced 42 overs of spin, scoring 315 runs at a run rate just above seven. Spinners have already accounted for 15 Indian wickets. On Wednesday, Dutch off-spinner Aryan Dutt returned figures of 2\/19 in four overs. Thriving on some fine spells by their spinners, Associate teams like the USA and the Netherlands have given India a scare before eventually going down. India\u2019s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate<\/a> acknowledged that teams were targeting them with finger spin, particularly given that the Men in Blue have several left-handers in the lineup. The entire top three (Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan<\/a>, and Tilak Varma) are left-handed, while Shivam Dube, Rinku Singh, and Axar Patel add to that count. \u201cThe Dutch guys took pace off the ball a lot of the time. And obviously teams are bowling a lot of finger spin to us, with so many left-handers in our lineup. That is a challenge. It has made it easier for the opposition. We don\u2019t have many options. We\u2019ve got Sanju sitting on the side,\u201d ten Doeschate said. It is a problem area India need to address before their Super 8 opener against South Africa here on Sunday. The Proteas boast quality spin options in captain Aiden Markram, George Linde, and Keshav Maharaj. Even West Indies and Zimbabwe\u2014the other teams in their group\u2014are well stocked in the spin department and pose a threat that cannot be ignored. The Windies, as they showed in their league-stage match against England at the Wankhede Stadium, have an effective spin trio in Gudakesh Motie, Akeal Hosein, and Roston Chase. Zimbabwe\u2019s four-pronged spin attack of Sikandar Raza, Ryan Burl, Graeme Cremer, and Wellington Masakadza can also spring a surprise. Ten Doeschate pointed out that it was finger spin that was troubling India\u2019s usually aggressive batters. \u201cI\u2019d say finger spin (is the problem). If you take the combined figures, Pakistan bowled 14 overs of finger spin in the last game and, off the top of my head, it was something like 4\/78. So it\u2019s not a great number. Colombo was a particularly difficult wicket. The numbers against the Netherlands improved towards the back end. But again, Dutt bowling four overs for what he did was a big challenge,\u201d he said, adding that bigger grounds had increased India\u2019s woes. \u201cI think these two venues in particular\u2014with a bigger boundary here and obviously a slower wicket in Colombo\u2014exaggerate that. But it\u2019s something we\u2019re going to have to focus on. With the amount of finger spin we\u2019re going to get in the next three games, it\u2019s going to be important that we dominate that phase of the game,\u201d he added. Ten Doeschate felt that India\u2019s batters have also looked vulnerable because the league-stage wickets have offered some assistance to spinners. \u201cIt\u2019s not a sudden thing. The wickets we\u2019ve played bilateral series on over the last 18 months have been really good batting tracks. Then, as soon as you come to a wicket that offers a bit of hold, it becomes a challenge. \u201cSo it might look like a short-term issue. On better wickets, you won\u2019t see it\u2014you can hit through the ball with more confidence. But the point is we need plans for wickets that do hold and where the boundaries are bigger. We need a clear game plan to deal with that threat,\u201d he said. Given all the talk of \u2018intent\u2019 and a \u2018fearless\u2019 approach in T20Is, India\u2019s post-Powerplay drop in run rate has also been very surprising.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahmedabad: India may have ended the league phase of the World Cup unbeaten, but there are a few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[39531,83667,1721,9981,103284,6778,114799,101,158964,8051,158965,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-435807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-abhishek-sharma","9":"tag-axar-patel","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-india-cricket-team","12":"tag-ishan-kishan","13":"tag-ryan-ten-doeschate","14":"tag-south-africa-cricket-team","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-super-8-stage","17":"tag-t20-world-cup","18":"tag-ten-doeschate","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}