Why have Jadeja and Axar gone off the boil?

A healthy rivalry has been brewing in the Indian team for some time now: who is the front-line left-arm spinner in the side?

For the longest time Ravindra Jadeja held the spot, producing good enough performances with both bat and ball. But the lack of returns from him overseas, and the rise of Axar Patel mean there is an alternative for the selectors and the team management.

Both Jadeja and Axar are left-arm fingerspinners, but the similarity ends there. Jadeja's strength is his easy action and his position at the crease as he bowls. Unlike many left-arm spinners when they bowl round the stumps, he is able to stay reasonably close to the wicket.

While running in between the stumps and the umpire to bowl round the wicket, it is difficult to not get pushed towards the corner of the crease, creating more of an angle in the delivery. Now, you must push the ball in to the right-hand batsman, which can lead to undercutting it a little too much and also reducing the chances of getting leg-before decisions in your favour. That's because the angle will take the ball down the leg side unless the ball grips the surface and straightens to finish within the three stumps. Jadeja's success was based on his ability to deliver from close to the stumps and invariably have the ball finish within the three stumps.

The majority of his dismissals in international cricket happen by trapping batsmen in the front. Since he bowls a lot quicker in the air than many other spinners, the moment the pitch offered something, he became lethal - some balls would grip and turn, while the rest held their line; and there was no perceptible change in action or release between the two types.

Axar, on the other hand, is radically different. He goes out to the corner of the crease, undercuts the ball - which means little or no spin - and does not rely heavily on leg-befores or stumpings. Instead, he uses his height and high-arm action to fool the batsmen into believing that the ball is short enough to cut when it isn't. When you face a bowler of his style, the first thing that comes to mind is to use the pace of the ball and cut it between the third man and point. You are aware that you don't have to hit it hard, for the pace of the ball is enough for it to find the fence if you find the gap. The flip side of cutting against Axar is that because of his height, you misjudge the length a little: it feels like the ball is a lot shorter than it actually is.

Also, you fail to gauge the pace at which the ball skids off the surface, and the combination of two finds you in a tangle. Once you've committed to the square cut, you can't bail out and that is how Axar got most of his initial success in the IPL and international cricket.

The other thing that works in his favour is that his length and speed don't give a batsman too many options to score runs. The pace at which he bowls and the trajectory he gets courtesy his height, it is quite difficult to use your feet to get to the pitch of the ball - which rules out a key shot against spinners. You can either use his pace to cut or paddle sweep, and if you want to go aerial, you need to exercise that option without leaving the crease. That is a somewhat difficult proposition for most batsmen, apart from the likes of Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard.

Jadeja lost his place to Axar in ODI cricket, and then Axar had a really poor IPL. What has gone wrong for these two in the last six to eight months?

Jadeja's strength was his high-arm action, which allowed him to get the ball to end within the stumps, but once the batsmen got the better off him in the shortest format, he lowered his bowling arm considerably. If you use the analogy of a clock, in this IPL his arm went from five minutes to 12, to about 13 minutes to 12. Jadeja lowered the arm in order to lower the trajectory of the ball, and to ensure that it didn't bounce much after pitching. Little did he realise that he compromised his biggest strength when doing that. That has led to a significant decline in his potency. He was doing exactly the same in the first ODI against Bangladesh - bowled fast and flat with a round-arm action.

On the other hand, Axar went a lot fuller in this season of the IPL than he used to bowl. That meant batsmen could get to the pitch of the ball without stepping out, which opened up a whole array of strokes for them. The cut and sweep were no longer the only scoring options against Axar, and that led to a dip in his effectiveness. It is possible that the fact that he is bowling a lot more than he has ever done might have led to muscle soreness and a possible niggle, for if the body is not used to a certain workload, it starts aligning itself to the new requirements by cutting corners. Bowling shorter and faster all the time must take a lot more effort than floating the ball a bit fuller, but choosing the latter means playing into the batsman's hands for Axar.

India's spin cupboard is not as full as it should be, and that is why it is critical for both these players to rediscover their mojo sooner rather than later.