India's spin dilemma: Will they play three pacers?

After spending two days preparing exclusively on a red-soil pitch, India and Bangladesh trained on a deck made of black soil in Chennai on Tuesday.

The first Test, beginning in Chennai on Thursday, is expected to be played on the red-soil trampoline which often offers good purchase to pacers, but the black-soil composition is more likely to assist the spinners.

The unusual weather pattern in the city could affect the nature of the pitch as the match goes on.

“It's really hot here in Chennai for the last couple of weeks, with temperature touching late 30s. Even though I heard that the pitch is sufficiently getting watered, the extreme heat could lead to its disintegration as the match progresses."

"It will bring the spinners into action as the match moves on. So, that could be the reason the batsmen were preparing for the turning ball,” a veteran curator told PTI.

It is true in the case of Indian batters as they had recently come unstuck against Sri Lankan spinners. The likes of Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant and even star batter Virat Kohli could not force the pace against the Lankan tweakers in that white ball series.

It was not really a surprising sight to see some of them working rigorously to perfect the art of playing spin on the day as Bangladesh have a clutch of experienced slow bowlers in their ranks.

Even assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate had recently admitted that the Indian batsmen could not nullify spin effectively against Sri Lanka.

“We got undone in Sri Lanka. The focus has moved to doing well in Australia, England, (so) that we've kind of let playing spin, which was always a strength of the Indian team, fall back a little bit,” Doeschate had said.

The Indian team is expected to go through an optional net session on Wednesday. Hence, there was that extra ounce of intensity in the day's practice passage here despite the sun beating down.

But the nature of the pitch — predominantly favouring the quicker bowler — will force the Indian management to pick the eleven for the opening Test carefully, in terms of selecting a third spinner in Kuldeep Yadav or a third pacer in either Akash Deep or Yash Dayal.

India fielding three pacers is a more realistic possibility here than in the second Test at Kanpur where the track could be slow and low.

The three-pacer ploy may well align with India's strategy of giving as much look-in for their pacers ahead of their gruelling tour to Australia, starting in November this year.