England have been clever to pick tall spinners in Indian conditions: Knight

England did not have a regular approach going into the five-match series against India, where ideally, they would have picked up their best spinners. But Brendon McCullum and his team had a very different approach to selection, where they picked the duo of Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir on the basis of their height. 

Not only does the release point create chaos in the minds of the batters, but it also helps them get help from the natural variation off the pitch. Former England batter Nick Knight insisted that it is that natural variation - the balls that don’t turn enough- that creates a lot of confusion in the minds of the batters. 

“Clearly, spin is India’s strength in Indian conditions. You sometimes though have to put into the pot what the opponent's strengths and weaknesses are. I played in India enough to realise the really tough bit for me playing spin in India wasn't the fact that the ball turned and bounced dramatically,” Knight told SportsBoom.

“It was the fact that the natural variation, some balls would turn a bit, some balls would turn dramatically. That's what's really hard because you can't set yourself as a batter to line up any particular ball because some will perform slightly differently,” he added. 

It was evident in the first Test in Hyderabad, where Tom Hartley’s ‘height’ played a big role in England’s win. Knight insisted that the exaggeration was greater when Hartley was releasing the ball. 

“England have been really smart and they've worked out that if you are delivering from six foot four then that exaggeration is greater. That variation is greater than if you're bowling at a lower height because the balls won't react as much off the pitch by its nature.”

“It'll skid on more and therefore it's easier to cover the spin. It's more difficult for a batter to cover the extremity of the extra bounce or the extra movement if it's coming from a height of six foot four. So that is where England have been really clever. They've tried to pick the type of spinners that might thrive in these Indian conditions,” said Knight.

England’s win at Hyderabad made it clear that India preparing rank-turners isn’t going to aid them, given how it reduces the bowling skillset gap between the two sides. Knight went on to make a bold claim that it would put England in an ‘advantageous position’. 

“I would say that's an England advantage. From India's perspective, I'd like to see a pitch that needs to just get the game set up and then get your spinners into the game when it's really turning. I would think that's probably a fair way for India to try and approach the game,” Knight said. 

Under the Bazball era, plenty of talents from England have made their Test debut, and one of the common things between all of them is how the management have been positive without putting a lot of pressure on the player.

Despite Hartley’s costly start, Ben Stokes had total faith in the left-arm spinner, who turned his fortunes around with a match-winning seven-wicket haul in the second innings of the Hyderabad Test. 

“But anyone who is making his debut for England now is going to bed thinking of all the things that can happen, thinking of a fifer or a match-turning innings. He's thinking of changing the game for his side because that's the environment that he's now in,” Knight said. 

“It is that sort of confidence that the environment that Stokes and McCullum and the team are providing that you can thrive off, that you can jump on the back of and say, do you know what a great time to be making a test match debut.”