Kapil Dev criticizes India’s top players for lacking sufficient domestic cricket experience, which hinders their ability to handle spin.
India’s 408-run implosion against South Africa at home has triggered the usual noise about technique, pitches, and IPL hangovers. But Kapil Dev isn’t interested in buzzwords. He’s asking one simple, old-school question: “Are India’s best batters even playing enough domestic cricket to know how to survive spin anymore?”
The 1983 World Cup-winning captain, speaking to Sportstar, drew a sharp contrast between previous generations and the current crop.
“That was because they had individual style, footwork, and the fact that they played good domestic cricket on a variety of pitches. I just want to know how many of today’s top players are playing domestic cricket. That’s the most crucial thing. If you don’t play domestic cricket and don’t face quality bowlers, you are going to struggle,” Kapil said.
With India having lost the home series to New Zealand and South Africa, and bowled out for sub-200 totals on helpful surfaces, his concerns seem to have enough logic.
Kapil Dev cannot understand India’s selection of pitches
Kapil didn’t spare the pitches either, but not in the usual “make it flatter” way. His gripe is about extreme, two-and-a-half-day finishes becoming the norm. “The pitches are very, very important. Not the type where the game ends in two and a half days. You lose the toss and lose the game. What is the point of having a pitch where no team crosses 200? It is not good for the state of the five-day game.”
That flows straight into his biggest worry: India’s batting muscles for tough red-ball conditions have atrophied in a white-ball obsessed calendar.
“We are more occupied with T20s and ODIs, which means that batters hardly encounter bowler-friendly pitches. On surfaces offering a lot of help to spin and seam, you need patience and a different set of skills to thrive. Once you are ready to play on those pitches, your mindset affects how you tackle them. You do not have batters like Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, who knew how to stay at the wicket. Batting in Tests is about staying in the middle,” said Kapil.
It’s a pointed throwback. Dravid and Laxman routinely stacked full Ranji seasons early in their careers; many current stars have played only a handful of first-class games in recent years as international and IPL commitments have exploded.
Spin needs more skill than pace – and different temperaments
Kapil is clear that playing spin well is a higher art than handling fast bowling. “You need better skills to tackle spin than to play pace, but it depends on the state of the pitch. If the turn or bounce is vicious, it becomes very difficult. Remember, footwork plays an important role.”
He also makes room for different batting personalities, using Rishabh Pant as the obvious example of a modern outlier. “If your temperament is to go and hit like Rishabh Pant, it is different. You cannot as Pant to defend. He is a genuine match-winner. He will go and hit the ball. He is not going to bat 100 balls and make 20. When he hits a six, we all go gaga. Do you tell him not to hit them? He is a batter who can demolish the opposition.”
For Kapil, the real solution is not to change Pant-like batters, but to rebuild the ecosystem that once produced Shastri, Amarnath and Gavaskar. “I was surprised that India lost to New Zealand and South Africa at home, but we should have prepared better. Test cricket is different. You ask a person like me to defend, it will not work. But you ask someone like Ravi Shastri to bat the whole day, he will do it. Jimmy Amarnath and Sunil Gavaskar could stay in the middle for the entire day. They had the temperament because they played a lot of domestic cricket.”
