The man with the golden arm

Do India's batsmen have the experience to read the new Lankan spinner and the confidence to take him on?

It's not often that India goes into a Test series where the main threat comes from a rookie spinner.

Muralitharan and Shane Warne have of course posed problems over the years, but the likes of Tendulkar and Ganguly - and Azharuddin before them - have never really been in awe of them, even if they've treated them with caution from time to time. That's because for Indian batsmen they've just been big turners of the ball, while their variations have been easy enough to read off the hand.

It's only when somebody like Saqlain Mushtaq has arrived on the scene with a variation like the 'doosra' that India has faltered against spin. Who can forget the 'doosra' which Sachin Tendulkar skied to Wasim Akram with just 15 runs to get for victory in the Chennai Test, which India eventually lost by nine runs.

It took a couple of seasons to sort out Saqlain, and it probably helped that Murali and Harbhajan Singh also developed the doosra - an off-spinner's ball that floats or even turns the other way toward the slips. Another factor in making the 'doosra' less dangerous has been the scrutiny that all three of its practitioners came under for their action while delivering that ball, and the consequent pressure on them to ensure minimal jerking of the elbow.

That's why I think if anybody can spin a web around the experienced Indian batsmen it has to be Ajantha Mendis, more than Muralitharan. India's one-day batsmen fell like nine pins to Mendis in the Asia Cup final, one after another playing for the off-break while the ball turned the other way. Naturally, in a Test match a batsman has the option to play defensive and thus gain more time to figure a bowler out. How long it takes the Indian batsmen to do that is the intriguing aspect of the current series.

Mendis is actually not as much of a freak bowler as Murali, in the sense that there have been at least three bowlers who have spun the ball in a similar way in Tests before this. John Iverson and John Gleeson of Australia had a similar bowling style and reportedly a similar impact on batsmen when they first hit the scene, although they tended to give away runs by wayward bowling every now and then. Apart from them, a current Sri Lankan spinner, Rangana Herath, also bends a finger behind the ball to give it a flick as you do in carom, but the ultra slow left-armer has had little success.

What perhaps sets Mendis apart is the speed and accuracy with which he has bowled so far. A quickish ball landing at a good length and turning one way or another at random is hard to deal with unless the batsman can get a clue from the bowler's action on what he's doing.

What Mendis does is to hold the ball between thumb and forefinger, with his middle finger bent at the knuckle behind the ball. He can spin the ball either way with that grip - not much, but enough to beat the bat. The question is whether the Indian batsmen can tell by looking at his hand at the point of delivery which way the ball will turn.

India's coach Gary Kirsten evidently has no answer because he says video analysis can only do so much, and it will be up to the batsmen to sort things out in the field. For somebody whose primary job is to support the players with insight into opposition strengths and weaknesses, this sounded like a cop-out, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt by assuming he was just keeping his cards close to his chest.

An old Indian master at playing spin bowling, however, has been more forthcoming as well as insightful. Gundappa Vishwanath says the position of Mendis' wrist is a giveaway as to whether it's his stock ball, which is the off-spin, or the one that veers the other way. There's a catch, however, which the Lankan wicket-keeper Kumar Sangakkara has pointed out: if you concentrate too hard on the wrist and fingers, you may lose focus on the ball!

What will add to the difficulty for the batsmen is the need to maintain concentration at both ends, with Murali and Mendis bowling in tandem. This is the first time in a long while that the Indian batsmen are up against a spin combo that looks more potent than their own.

Kumble and Harbhajan had an ordinary series against the South Africans earlier this year. Only in the second innings of the final Test, in which the Indians skittled the South Africans out for 121 on a rank turner, did Harbhajan exert any influence. But even there his tally of four wickets in 23 overs was almost matched by Sehwag's three wickets in nine overs.

It will be interesting to see what kind of pitch the Lankans produce. A rough, hard surface will help both Mendis and Kumble, who bowl quick spin. The usual Lankan fare of a slow turner, however, will negate Kumble but could also give the Indian batsmen just that split second extra to read Mendis off the pitch instead of having to pick him off the hand.

c_sumit@dnaindia.net