Exclusive: Former SL skipper Marvan Atapattu shares why subcontinent batters are failing at playing spin

The subcontinent (Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan) batters have been good players of spin in general. The skill, however, has been going down in recent times after the retirement of greats like Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, and VVS Laxman (India), Marvan Atapattu, Mahela Jayawardene, and Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka), and Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, and Inzamam ul Haq (Pakistan).

The current generation of players from all three countries has become susceptible to spin, barring a few, namely Virat Kohli, Babar Azam, and Dimuth Karunaratne, who also fail at times.

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With the countries preferring to make pitches spin-friendly in subcontinent, the strategy has backfired more often than not, as evident by India's recent home loss against New Zealand and Sri Lanka losing at home against Australia.

Former SL skipper Marvan Atapattu, a great player of spin, in a chat with WION shared his thoughts on why subcontinent batters, once excellent players of spin, have been failing in recent times.

"The shorter game has taken the whole concept, the whole art of the way players approached spinners. I looked up to the players like Sunil Gavaskar, Viswanath and so many others from India. Mohinder Amarnath was another one, there was an art of playing spin, not just blindly reverse-sweeping everything," Atapattu said while talking to WION on the sidelines of a recent charity match in Bengaluru.

"I am a bit old-fashioned saying that but people don't try (art) it. I still think that is the basics of playing a spinner. You rather know your basics, if you know your basics it's like a foundation for a building you have your basics right you have something to fall on. You can always run and check what these traits have done over the years. But if you have only confidence in sweeping and reverse sweeping, you are forgetting the easier the artistic manner that players in the yesteryear succeeded. We had spinners always, it was about field setting, and that's all, I think you must have a base," he added.