30 to win off 30 and South Africa were cruising in the T20 World Cup Finals last year. The game was slipping away until Jasprit Bumrah came with a magical spell to bring the trophy home. He was center stage again during the Border Gavaskar Trophy finishing with 30+ wickets, dominating and single-handedly keeping India through the series. Ruled out though, the Champions Trophy was always going to be a challenge for India. Their strike bowler was gone and India were going in without a trump card seemingly. Dubai though, with its spin allowed India to trust their vintage spin.

Most teams go in with two spinners and maybe a part-timer on conditions that offer a good amount of turn. India, though, started with three to challenge Pakistan and Bangladesh. They then decided that they could do with one more, bringing their final Trump card, Varun Chakravarthy, in to play four spinners. Dubai was helping them with a lot of spin and slowness on tired tracks that have recently hosted the ILT20. From the norm of two spinners and a part timer, India went with not three but four spinners of differing variety. Two of them are left-arm spinners who bat as good as anyone in the top five thus extending the batting line-up to number eight while giving six genuine bowling options. They also went with two wrist-spinners using both hands with a lot of mystery behind them.

In Axar Patel, India had a left-arm spinner who could bowl in the powerplay while also batting at number five gave India a leftie in the middle-order. The other left-arm spinner, Ravindra Jadeja, is among the greatest all-rounders in the game and is a proven master of the middle-overs. In each game he was as quick as ever into his overs, finishing them in less than two minutes giving batters little time to breath. His fielding is an added bonus with the arm as good as ever. Kuldeep Yadav the third one comes with a lot of mystery and woke up as a death bowler in the tournament bowling a fair chunk of his overs in the last ten of the innings. The fourth one, Varun Chakravarthy comes in with mystery of his own. He is relatively new as well in the international circuit and can bowl equally well through the innings.

With the quartet, India were quick in spinning webs around the batters. Solid starts quickly became slow paced with batters struggling to find the boundary or even get the ball past the square for a single. The final was clear evidence of the spinners doing their magic. At 57 for no loss in the 9th over, Will Young and Rachin Ravindra were running away with the game. Varun Chakravarthy though opened the game up with a beauty to get Will Young and Kuldeep Yadav bowled what could be the ball of the Final to get Rachin Ravindra. He picked the wicket of Williamson as well and that set New Zealand into snooze mode. The intent was gone and India had the best men to make the most of it. Axar Patel started but it was Ravindra Jadeja, introduced in the 19th over who got into his rhythm. It was his day as he bowled over after over, hitting the same line and length that made him dangerous for so many years. There wasn't much spin but he was getting it to grip, and being the fastest of the four he was tough to get under. Jadeja rushed through his overs bowling nine unchanged and getting Tom Latham out sweeping. He followed with some energetic chases and rocket throws while finishing the innings at number eight highlighting his value once more in the side.

The middle-overs shift though was not his alone. With Jadeja holding one end, the attacking bowlers took the other ends with Kuldeep, Axar and Chakravarthy rotating. Kuldeep and Chakravarthy had already laid the groundwork with three wickets between them and Rohit Sharma used the three of them beautifully in bursts. It was Chakravarthy who got Glenn Phillips again at the right time with Phillips just getting into his groove heading into the slog overs. The other left-arm spinner, Axar Patel, comes in slightly differently. Taller than Jadeja, he brings in the extra bounce and he was just as good, if not better than Jadeja at applying the squeeze, picking up wickets as well at key points. For Axar though, bowling was not the only aspect. His batting in the top five was equally crucial. He played a key knock in the Final, as the leftie in the middle-order.

With Kuldeep Yadav, India did not miss Bumrah as Yadav took the death overs and bowled them really well. The true trump card though was Varun Chakravarthy who was tough to pick. Teams could not read him as he took nine wickets in the three matches he played. Had he started the Player of the Tournament medal could have well been his. The tournament had a lot of dominance with the batters making marks at different times. The engine room though was clearly the spin quartet, which is something that is very rare to see and something Cricket might not see as often.