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Four spinners in a home Test: Gambhir's bold call mirrors Dhoni's Nagpur gamble with a twist

Kaushik Kashyap

MS Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir [Source: AFP]MS Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir [Source: AFP]

India's bold decision to field four spinners in the opening Test against South Africa at Eden Gardens has stirred both excitement and curiosity. It is a selection approach untouched for over a decade, instantly bringing back memories of a similar high-stakes gamble made during the 2012 Nagpur Test against England.

MS Dhoni, India's Test captain back in the time, scripted a defining chapter in India's spin-centric history, a chapter that now echoes under head coach Gautam Gambhir, but in a slightly different form. With conditions likely to favour the spinners, India again trusts a spin-heavy attack, though Gambhir's allrounder-driven tweak gives this renewed gamble a different and modern edge.

Dhoni’s spin-heavy strategy in 2012 and the Nagpur standstill

MS Dhoni has long been known for his trust in spinners, and nowhere was it more evident than during the 2012 home series against England. Trailing 2-1 heading into the final Test in Nagpur, India needed a victory to level the series.

Dhoni responded with an aggressive, spin-dominated XI featuring Pragyan Ojha, Ravichandran Ashwin, Piyush Chawla and debutant Ravindra Jadeja, four specialist slow bowlers tasked with turning the match India's way.

But despite the high stakes, the plan fell flat. The Nagpur pitch remained slow and unresponsive, offering spin but not enough bite to force a result. India struggled to create constant pressure, and the Test ended in a draw, handing England a historic series win on Indian soil.

That strategic gamble, though memorable, failed to deliver its intended impact and has lingered as a cautionary reminder whenever India considers such a spin-heavy combination. And notably, despite India's dominant era under Virat Kohli, the four-spinners approach never resurfaced for 13 years, until now.

Gambhir’s Eden Gardens familiarity and his allrounder-centric twist

Thirteen years later, Gautam Gambhir has revisited the four-spinner formula as India name four spinners in the XI for the first Test against South Africa at Eden Gardens, but with a twist shaped by his coaching philosophy. Using his familiarity with Kolkata's conditions, he echoes Dhoni's idea but differs sharply in construction.

Instead of four specialist spinners, India's current quartet, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar, features three allrounders capable of batting deep. Their collective versatility offers India a balance that the 2012 group lacked, allowing Gambhir to pursue a spin-heavy plan without compromising batting depth in the line-up.

Notably, Sai Sudharsan has been sacrificed to bring Axar Patel into the XI, while Washington Sundar is expected to bat as high as No. 3, a bold adjustment that signals Gambhir's belief in multi-dimensional cricketers. Whether this will work against the World Test Champions remains to be seen.

But one thing is unmistakably clear: Gambhir's commitment to all-rounders is nothing new. It now fully reflects in a Test XI, for the first time under his helm, where depth and versatility sit at the core, blending echoes of Dhoni's style with Gambhir's own tactical tadka to shape India's spin-centric theory at home.