The veteran Indian spinner, Harbhajan Singh reckons that Ravichandran Ashwin deserves to be recalled in the India squads for ODIs and T20Is, especially after seeing his recent exploits with the red ball. With the management and selectors exploring options ahead of the T20 World Cup next year, opportunities have been given to the likes of Washington Sundar and Rahul Chahar.

As the selectors meet to pick the ODI and T20 squads for the West Indies series next month, Harbhajan said, “This is what I feel if you are looking to bowl a spinner upfront (which Sundar has been doing in T20s), you rather have a wicket-taker which Ashwin is. Ashwin spins the ball, he has got more variations. Someone like a Sundar needs to learn. I want him to do well. I am all for blooding in youngsters but they must learn else they will be replaced, considering the stiff competition.”

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Ashwin last played a limited-overs game for India in July 2017, following which he and Ravindra Jadeja were overlooked for the shorter formats with wrist-spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Chahal replacing the finger-spinners. Jadeja was able to make a comeback but Ashwin hasn’t.

Kuldeep has not been part of the last three T20 series while Chahal made a successful comeback against Bangladesh earlier this month after being sidelined against the West Indies and South Africa. Harbhajan, though, also believed that the wrist-spin duo is the best bet for providing breakthroughs.

Talking about the pink ball Test starting in Kolkata on Thursday, Harbhajan said there are no guarantees if the first five-day match in India under lights will lead to bigger crowds in the future.

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Harbhajan said, “I don’t see pink ball matches bringing a lot of people to the ground in India. You have to do something else, probably taking Test cricket to the smaller centers where people have not seen their heroes and have not seen action. People say Ashes get the big crowds. They get the crowd because the quality of cricket is good. You can’t expect big crowds for an India-Bangladesh game or India-Zimbabwe game. You have to have two strong teams playing. Another big factor (in people staying away from stadiums) is that there is no infrastructure for the public at stadiums in India.”