Sehwag takes a dig at India's cricket legends as old wounds resurface under Gambhir

The recent ODI series loss highlighted a persistent challenge for India - their ongoing struggles against top-quality spin bowlers. Throughout the three ODIs, India saw 27 of their 30 wickets fall to spin, with Jeffrey Vandersay's impressive 6/33 performance in the second match proving particularly damaging. Dunith Wellalage also made his mark with a five-wicket haul, further exposing India's vulnerability to spin bowling. Wellalage had previously troubled India at the Asia Cup, though they narrowly clinched victory on that occasion.

Gone are the days when Indian batting would dominate spin regardless of where it was playing. Barring the tour of Sri Lanka in 2008, when 'mystery' bowler Ajantha Mendis was unleashed, not once did India's fabled batting line-up of the 2000s – featuring Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly faltered, whereas it's becoming a norm today. Be it a part-time spinner or a specialised tweaker, the last decade has been haunting whenever Indian batting is tested against spin, with rectifying it being one of Gambhir's foremost challenges.

As to why there's been a sharp decline in India's ability to play spin, Virender Sehwag, who made a career out of bashing spinner, made a very interesting point. India's only batter to smash 2 Test triple-centuries in Tests, Sehwag feels India's spin woes stem from two reasons: lack of quality spinners and thus, lack of its exposure in domestic cricket.

"One reason for this is that the more white ball cricket there is, the less spinners will come, because in T20 cricket you bowl 24 balls and do not flight them, so you do not develop the skill to get the batsman out. I think that could be one reason. Indian players also play less domestic cricket. In domestic cricket you get to play more spin than in international cricket. So that can also be a reason. I think there are no quality spinners in India right now whom I see who can fly well and take wickets," Sehwag told Amar Ujwala.

"In our time, Dravid, Sachin, Ganguly, Laxman, Yuvraj, all of us used to play domestic cricket too, whether it was ODI or four-day cricket, we used to play a lot of domestic cricket. We used to play a lot of spinners in that, but in today's busy schedule, players are getting less time. There are different leagues, due to which the skill of playing spin is not being developed by the players."

It was perhaps because of this glaring fact that a few months ago, the BCCI decided to make it mandatory for Indian cricketers to feature in domestic cricket. Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan, after failing to play by the rules, paid the price and had their central contracts terminated, a wake-up call by the BCCI to all those taking domestic cricket for granted.