Australia flew in chinaman bowler from Kerala for practice

The ‘fantastic foes’ are set to clash against each other on Sunday in the first of the 5-match ODI series at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. Both the teams are training hard and are leaving no stone unturned in terms of preparations. The Australian team management on Friday flew in a specialist chinaman bowler from Kerala, KK Jiyas for practice in order to tackle India’s, Kuldeep Yadav. The Indian spinner is a mystery so far for many as he had troubled the visitors on his Test debut in Dharamsala.

The importance of wrist spinners is increasing in the limited-overs format as the wickets being dished out are flat. These spinners seldom require assistance from the pitch to get wickets as they have a lot of variations up their sleeve to fox the batsmen. While India has Kuldeep and Yuzvendra Chahal in their squad, Australia has the leggie Adam Zampa to strangle the batsmen.

I troubled a few batsmen

The 22-year-old youngster Jiyas was seen bowling to the Australian batsmen in the nets on Friday. He mentioned that he could not bowl to David Warner and Aaron Finch but troubled the other batsmen with his variations. “S. Sriram (Australian team consultant) called me to bowl against their batsmen. But for David Warner and Aaron Finch (who is injured), I bowled to all the other top batsmen and troubled a few of them. Glenn Maxwell and James Faulkner, though, hit me inside out and slogged me over mid-wicket,” the former Delhi Daredevils bowlers told to Times of India.

Ashton Agar, the left-arm spinner, was also of the opinion that wrist spinners might have a final say in the series. “They don’t need spinner-friendly wickets and are all pretty clever. And once the light comes on, it gets harder to pick the wrong ones. These guys are real wicket-taking options and can be hard to get away,” Agar said.

While the India-Australia series has always dished out some high scoring thrillers this time around it seems that it would be a contest between these spinners and the batsmen which is going to be a fascinating one in the upcoming matches.