Is history going to repeat itself in Indian cricket - a la 'Pras-Venkat' scenario?

Two off spinners in the playing XI again, both ace tweakers at that: yes, are talking about Bhajji (Harbhajan), the come back man and ‘hero’ on the rise Ravichandran Ashwin. Both failed to bamboozle the Aussies on Friday night in Colombo as Aussie Shane Watson showed in the T20 game. But that’s cricket. The question is, is history repeating itself in Indian cricket? The days when two ace off spinners were battling out for a place in the XI: Erapali Prasanna and S Venkataraghavan, both engineer turned off spinners from neighbouring states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu nee Mysore and Madras in their hey days.

The running debate then was, who is better - ‘Pras’ or ‘Venky’? Some used to root for Prasanna as the classical offie, full of guile, ready to buy his wickets, attacking the batsman as the batsman would go for a heave. Some others would say Venky was better, tying down the batsman, more economical wicket taker vis a vis his ‘rival’ for a place in the XI. The debate used to rage endlessly as the selectors picked them or dropped them according to the situation. But Venky sympathisers used to argue the Madras talent used to get the stick more than Prasanna unfairly. But as any true cricket follower understood the nuances better, both these talents only complimented each other and had great respect for each other.

Is Team India heading for a similar situation again what with Harbhajan having made a come back into the XI after being dropped for poor form one year back? With lot of cricket to come for Dhoni’s Team India after the T20 World Cup, the Bhajji-Ashwin race will unfold more intensely. And it also appears that the two left arm tweakers – the senior P Ojha and the upcoming Harmik Singh, if the latter matures to expectations, would compliment the Bhajji-Ashwin race. And with the spin wealth of Indian cricket set to recapture the years gone by, exciting days are here again. Remember, a parallel debate in Indian cricket, alongside the Pras-Venky talk, was the Bedi-Dileep Doshi-Shivalkar-Rajinder Goel debate – that Doshi was more economical and that Shivalkar and Goel had to languish in the shadow of Bedi, not getting a break to don the national colours despite their prodigious talent.