Saransh Jain: The understated off-spinner with a red-ball obsession

After IPL 2024, Saransh Jain went to Chandrakant Pandit to tell him that he didn't want to be a net bowler for a team ever again. The Kolkata Knight Riders had summoned Saransh for that season and he'd spent a month and a half bowling in their nets. When Pandit asked him why, his response gave away his psyche.

"When I asked why, he said, 'Sir, I'm very keen to play for India in red-ball cricket. If somebody picks me in the auction, I don't mind, but I don't want to go and keep bowling in the nets. Due to white-ball, I may lose out on red-ball. I can always bowl in white-ball cricket later,'" Pandit tells Cricbuzz.

This of course, didn't surprise Pandit one bit. As the head coach of the Madhya Pradesh team in the Ranji Trophy, he'd already seen what the long format truly meant to the off-spinner. In 2020, when Pandit took over the state side, Saransh wasn't a regular. But that changed right away because Pandit saw rarity in his game: it was untouched by the demands of the white-ball.

"See, normally, what is expected from the spinners, nowadays? If you see most of the spinners are very flat trajectory bowlers, because they keep playing white ball. Very rarely do we see bowlers like Harbhajan. So that was my first impression - that Saransh is an ideal off-spinner," Pandit says.

For 26 years between 1998 and 2024, India were blessed with two such off-spinners who returned a staggering 954 Test wickets. Looking back, it's truly remarkable how the off-spin baton passed from Harbhajan Singh to Ravichandran Ashwin, two bowlers who brought guile and intelligence to their vocation like few others. But finding an heir to Ashwin hasn't been easy. The current Indian management has gravitated towards all-rounders, leading them to Washington Sundar, who brings a very different set of skills as an off-spinner.

The timing of the search for an off-spinner matters too. India perhaps lucked out with a classical bowler like Ashwin because of the cricket climate in the country when he made the step up. His Test debut came in 2011, when the IPL was already established but T20 hadn't yet become such an important cog in the fabric of Indian cricket. That Saransh arrives in 2026 with barely any influence of the white-ball game showing in his bowling adds to his credibility before he even steps onto the field as a Test cricketer.

Chapters could be written about just the approach to the crease from Ashwin and Harbhajan. Saransh, in that sense, is a lot more understated: there isn't even a noticeable jump in the load-up. But don't mistake that for a lack of effort. The finer details of his bowling piqued Pandit's interest for a reason. Deceptively uneventful as the action may be, Pandit saw that the ball came out well and with plenty of revs from Saransh's hand, giving him the gift of dip and drift.

He's now in the Indian team, but it took a sizeable effort from both him and Pandit to get him there. Back in 2020, a lack of game time meant Saransh lacked confidence.

"I had to obviously talk to him. Initially we spent a lot of time to understand him. He was matured enough to talk: to say I am just not having my confidence, I am just waiting and waiting. And even if I get one game, I'm not sure about whether I'll do well. So I am taking a lot of pressure because of that. We chatted about such things," Pandit says.

Pandit offered him the cushion and security, even if it came at the cost of other established spinners at Madhya Pradesh. The coach stuck his neck out for Saransh and saw him soar, developing tremendously on the go. Saransh has been playing domestic cricket since 2014, but truly got his wings only from the knockouts of the 2021-22 season.

As his game developed, Pandit suggested small tweaks that were met with resistance and reluctant acceptance. "He's the only off spinner, if you consider in India, who comes to bowl the first delivery from round the wicket," Pandit says. "The first game which he played in a knockout [Ranji Trophy quarterfinals 2021-22], he'd started over the wicket. But I suggested to him to try bowling from round the wicket.

"Obviously, no off-spinner will accept that so easily. There is a reason: because they think they will be deprived of leg before dismissals. I had to convince him. I said, you at least try out. Don't worry, because the security is there. Even if you bowl badly [from there], you will not be punished for it. So, that made him a little more confident about it."

After that conversation, Saransh often started from round the stumps in domestic cricket. He did it earlier this month too, in India's warm-up game against SLC XI in Colombo. With time, he also found ways to bring the LBW back into his game from this angle against right-handers. In last year's Duleep Trophy final, Saransh picked up a fifer, the first of which was an LBW of Ricky Bhui - a right-hander, from round the stumps.

To Pandit, Saransh came across as an inquisitive cricketer who often had his mind occupied by the lengths to bowl, fields to set and batters to target. He also inundated Pandit with questions. The amount of thought he put into the game gave Pandit the confidence to even turn him into a new-ball bowler. Pandit trialled it in the nets before taking it into matches.

At the business end of the 2021-22 Ranji Trophy season, Saransh bagged 13 wickets across the quarterfinals, semifinals and final. He played a lot more in the seasons that followed and had consistent returns throughout: 35 wickets in eight games in 2022-23; 27 wickets in eight in 2023-24; 21 wickets in seven in 2024-25; 30 wickets in seven in 2025-26. By the time of his India debut, he had 188 wickets in 54 first-class fixtures.

All of this has also been complemented by the ability to bat efficiently down the order. Saransh scored a first-innings half-century in Madhya Pradesh's title-winning final against Mumbai in the 2021-22 Ranji season. On the recent A tour of Sri Lanka, he made an unbeaten 70 in the second unofficial Test. In what will come as music to the ears of Shubman Gill and Gautam Gambhir, their newest No. 9 has put in the hard yards to sharpen his batting and add to his all-rounder profile.

"In the local tournament, in Madhya Pradesh, he used to get runs. But I think that he got a little casual about his batting for a couple of years which he didn't realize. Maybe he was overconfident that he can bat well," Pandit says.

"Before we started the last season, we had a chat and he came to meet me in the office. And he told me that this year, I'll definitely work on my batting because as you said that if I really want to play for a country, I have to also score runs."

Saransh had Mumbai spinner Tanush Kotian as example. Kotian has been a warhorse in the domestic circuit, bowling off-spin and scoring runs as a lower-order batter. "Because he [Kotian] can score runs and the way he has been winning the games for Mumbai. I said, that is the advantage for any team. Saransh took that very seriously. He has won a few games for us with his batting."

There was an acute level of detail to his batting improvements too. "He had a habit of playing a [cut] shot outside the off stump: he'd hit between gully and point region. And he used to play a little late. I remember that I told him that you'll have to totally stop those shots. He was always very confident that he will connect [with that shot].

Pandit saw a worrying pattern: Saransh kept getting out trying to execute this high-risk shot in red-ball cricket. Pandit made him aware of it, and Saransh put in the corrective work. Last season, he entirely avoided playing the cut.

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