Reviving India's Spin Bowling Strength: Assistant Coach's Goal

Ryan ten Doeschate, India's Assistant Coach, has observed that India's increasing focus on high-quality fast bowling might have unintentionally led to a slump in their performance against spin. Sharing his views after India lost 27 wickets to spin bowling in their recent ODI series against Sri Lanka, ten Doeschate stated that the current Indian mindset is highly focused on outperforming overseas. Given this shifting focus, their traditionally strong spin playing abilities seem to have taken a backseat.

"I guess one of the challenges that I wasn't expecting and kind of overlooked is the playing of spin. We were undone in Sri Lanka. The mindset of the Indians has been such that they are so driven to do overseas well. I think the focus has moved to succeeding in Australia and England, and we've kind of let playing spin fall back a little bit. That's a shortfall I intend to address, with the goal of restoring India to their place as the best players of spin in the world again," said ten Doeschate in an interview with TalkSport Cricket. 

Under newly appointed head coach, Gautam Gambhir, ten Doeschate, along with his fellow assistant coaches, will be tasked with strengthening the team's bowling and addressing batting deficiencies. Disclosing his coaching strategy, he emphasized necessity of focusing more on players' mindsets, their situational awareness, and control over different game phases, instead of delving deep into technicalities.

Taking over at a crucial point, where India has recently won the T20 World Championship, the coaching team also has major upcoming events to look forward to - the World Test Championship and the Champions Trophy. "It's exciting and kind of daunting at the same time," said ten Doeschate on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.