Roger Binny, coach of the junior Indian cricket team, today said the selectors should have picked an additional spinner to give variety to the bowling attack instead of packing the team with as many as five seamers for the upcoming Zimbabwe tour.

"I am not in favour of five seamers for the tour. I think we should have picked one or two more spinners to make the bowling attack more balanced. I would have preferred two more spinners", Binny told reporters in Kolkata.

Binny, who was in the city as part of the National Cricket Academy's coaching programme, said bowlers have a vital role to play and will have to stick to a steady line and length to make an impact.

The 15-member squad, which left for Zimbabwe from Mumbai this morning, has five pacers in the form of Javagal Srinath, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, Debashish Mohanty and Ashish Nehra. Harbhajan Singh and Sairaj Bahutule are the two specialist spinners.

Asked about the prospects of the Indian team in Zimbabwe, Binny said "I really can't say. I don't have much idea about the conditions in Zimbabwe. It should be a good series.

"But going by the performance during the home series against the strong Australian team, I think we should do well there. The series win against Australia should have given a lot of confidence to the team".

Binny, a member of the 1983 World Cup winning team, said that the lack of genuine all rounders has been an area of concern for Indians, particularly in the shorter version of the game.

"We don't have genuine all rounders at the moment. Our tail opens up early in the one-dayers. We can't afford to have such a long tail. It is necessary to have a depth in batting", Binny said.

He said that Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble were decent batsmen but were not scoring the runs in the last few years. "Probably they are concentrating more on their bowling and neglecting their batting to some extent".

The junior Indian coach said that there were a couple of youngsters in the zonal camps who held the promise of developing into genuine all rounders in the future.

Asked whether India lacked a quality wicket-keeper at the moment, Binny said some young wicket keepers have come into the scene and it should not be long before they force their way into the national team.

He singled out Haryana's Ajay Ratra and Bengal's Deep Dasgupta as future prospects. "Both are talented youngsters and shaping up nicely for the future. They will give a tough fight to the senior wicket keepers soon".

Binny, who spent time with the East Zone Academy boys at the nets, said the National Cricket Academy's coaching programmes will help the youngsters fine tune their techniques which will help them in the long run.

The former all rounder, who is actively involved with the NCA's coaching programme, said some of the youngsters had the capability of making it to the national team after a few years.

"These youngsters are all very keen. We are emphasing on physical fitness and fielding, the two areas where we need to improve. We will have players who are physically fitter and better fielders in the future", he added.

© PTI