R Ashwin and Nathan Lyon, ready to spin it up

The off-spinners, friends and rivals, are ready to dish out their craft and have a big say in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series starting in Nagpur on Thursday

To the casual observer, off-spin bowling may never be as aesthetically appealing as leg spin with its guile and variety. But if you want two fine exponents of the craft demonstrating the nuances in an off-spinner's armoury — wicked turn and bounce, beguiling flight, subtle changes of pace, differences in release points and angles, and the ever-deceptive arm ball whether bowled intentionally or otherwise — look no further than the match-up between R Ashwin and Nathan Lyon in the India versus Australia Test series starting in Nagpur on February 9.

R Ashwin; Nathan Lyon

The two spinners, who began their Test journeys two months of each other in 2011 (Lyon in August and Ashwin in November), stand indisputably as the best spinners of the past decade in five-day cricket. Pertinently, they continue to show ambition and appetite to aim for greater accolades. Their track record says it all — Ashwin has 449 wickets in 88 Tests at a strike rate of 52.5 and Lyon has 460 wickets in 115 Tests at 64.7.

Even if they present clichés over the next four weeks about focusing on the team rather than personal battles, suffice to say they will be keeping as keen an eye on each other’s wicket tallies as the series scoreline. Who will get to the milestone of 500 first? Remember that Muttiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne and Anil Kumble are the only spinners to cross that mark in Tests.

That Ashwin and Lyon will be central figures in their respective teams’ plans is clear from the build-up to the marquee series. From training on dustbowls to roping in a young off-spinner whose bowling action has a striking resemblance to Ashwin’s in their ongoing preparatory camp in Bengaluru, Australia are intently focusing on countering the lanky offie from Chennai.

Though India’s training sessions are taking place in relative anonymity, they are also certain to be facing a heavy diet of off-spin in their camp in Nagpur. Never mind that Australia have brought three other spinners to India — left-arm spinner Ashton Agar, leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson and rookie off-spinner Todd Murphy.

While Ashwin and Lyon have a similar build that enables them to generate disconcerting bounce, there are considerable differences in their approaches too.

“Lyon is a classical spinner. His action is very classical, he puts a lot more body into his bowling. The number of revs he gives on the ball is more,” former Tamil Nadu left-arm spinner Sunil Subramanian, who coached Ashwin in his formative years, said. “Ashwin isn’t as classical as Lyon. Ashwin has got other strengths.”

As Subramanian — he was also the India team manager from 2017 to 2019 — stressed in his assessment of the two spinners, there are “different ways to skin a cat”.

“Ashwin is more to do with wrist, fingers, height, angles, variation of pace. Lyon is a completely traditional bowler. Ashwin probes the angles and you can see he is more cerebral. You can see that he is plotting a batter's dismissal. You could see that with (Shane) Warne too,” said Subramanian.

Their lines of attack too vary. Lyon’s conventional approach is evident from his default setting -- bowling outside off-stump and looking to find the gap between bat and pad. As we saw during India’s last tour of Australia, Ashwin aims to target the middle and leg-stump line. That resulted in Steve Smith and the other Australian batters often being at Ashwin’s mercy in the series. Smith’s series average dropped below 45 and Ashwin’s 12 wickets in three Tests is counted among his best overseas returns.

Considering Ashwin’s proclivity to tweak tactics based on conditions, Subramanian expects the 36-year-old to come up with different plans at home.

“Smith had problems against Ashwin with that middle-leg stump line because of the bounce in Australia. His line will depend on the conditions. He is a very intelligent bowler. He will look at what chinks he sees, what the conditions are and then exploit them. If he gets a reasonable amount of turn outside the off-stump, he doesn’t have to probe the leg-stump line,” he said.

Another factor likely to influence the performances of Ashwin and Lyon is the number of right-handers and left-handers in the line-ups. While India are loaded with right-handed batters who will be comfortable against the ball spinning into them, Ashwin is likely to thrive against the southpaws in the Aussie line-up. Four of their top seven — David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Travis Head and Alex Carey — bat left-handed.

“Lyon, at times, can get predictable. He can keep bowling a similar line and length. So, if India want to take him on, there are certain areas they can target. Ashwin is different. He has got variety. He will be testing both the inside and outside edge of the bat,” he said.

It all sets up for a mini-battle involving the two offies that is likely to be just as intriguing as the main plot.