Indian captain Rahul Dravid is caught in a dilemma over whether to play both his star spinners in the first cricket Test against the West Indies starting in Antigua on Friday.
| |||||||||||
"The two spinners (Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh) are quality spinners but even though the wickets are slow here they don't spin as much as it does in India," Dravid said.
"Going by our experience, they start getting slower and slower. Even for a spinner, it's a challenge because a lot of time bat and pad edges don't carry."
From being one of the favourites to win before the series, Dravid again found himself in the hot chair trying to defend his team's strengths and explain why India haven't won a Test series outside the sub-continent since 1986, with the exception of Zimbabwe last September.
"We realize that you don't win till you get 20 wickets. If you play five bowlers then it puts a certain pressure on your batting. You want your wicketkeeper and others to contribute with the bat," he said.
"Going by our experience in Pakistan, slow wickets put a lot of pressure on your bowlers because it is a lot of hard work."
Dravid still felt his side had the quality in batting which could allow runs to be scored quickly and defend for long periods if the situation so required.
"We have batsmen like Sehwag, Laxman, Yuvraj, Jaffer and me who are not blockers. We can score runs quickly but obviously we can't put a benchmark on the number of runs we must score in a day.
"We also have batsmen who can defend for long periods and bail us out like we did in the first two Tests in Pakistan and then in Nagpur against England.
"Of course we failed in Karachi and Mumbai but I feel if a side is put under pressure, they can crack sometimes. The key is not to get into those sort of situation."
Dravid maintained that the loss in the one-day series wouldn't make much difference because the requirements of Test cricket were greatly different.
"When we analysed the one-day series we realise that two or three critical areas were different to what we experience in Tests.
"Fielding of course is one area which we carry in both forms of the game and catching is going to be very important in the Tests."
Dravid said his side had identified the men who would be standing in the close-in cordon, an area which cost his team heavily in the Mumbai Test against England in March.
"We haven't had much time to put it in practice but we have spoken about it and the guys are looking to stand in that position."
More from rediff