Former Australian captain Ian Chappell feels bowling is a big area of concern for India and the defending champions should go with two spinners rather then depending on pacers during the cricket World Cup to be held in Australia and New Zealand.
"For India the big area of concern is bowling. I mean against a better side they can concede 300 plus runs. I know India is good chaser and they will fancy themselves chasing but against better attacks it can be too hard. There bowling has been profligate and I don't see any sign of improvement," Chappell told NDTV during a chat.
"India must play two spinners. R Ashwin and I like (Axar) Patel. Generally India's strength is spinners. So it is better India goes with their strengths.
"If you have some good spinners who can get some wickets in the middle overs by luring them, like Nathan Lyon does it for Australia. So good spinners can buy you wickets. Good is the operative word here," he said.
Chappell said India's pace attack lacks accuracy and Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men need to sort them out before they start their campaign on February 15.
"I think you need to have five regular bowlers. Shikhar Dhawan is struggling opening the innings and Binny can be brought in as an opener. Technically (Stuart) Binny looks efficient, so he can open the innings. He then makes the extra bowler," Chappell said.
"India have some genuine fast bowlers but there is no point if you bowl fast but inaccurate. So if they can get the fast bowlers sorted, then it'll be good and get some extra overs from Binny. But if they go for an extra fast bowler because it is in Australia then it is not good." he said.
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar too backed Chappell and described how the 1985 World Championship winning side used spinners to tame the opponents.
"If we can go back to 1985, the boundaries were right near the fence. We used spinners such as Shastri and Laxman Sivaramakrishnan. So I felt may be a leg-spinner could have been handy. We have similar spinners in Patel and Ashwin, may be a Karn Sharma would have been handy," he said.
"But you have big boundaries in Australia, if Ashwin can bowl without much experiment he can be good. Patel is more of a roller of the ball but he is accurate. Ravindra Jadeja is a bit predictable because he has a same line and lengh but these are big boundaries so spinners will play a part.
