The Queue That Never Empties: Shams Mulani and India's Left-Arm Spin Traffic Jam

It was 2:40 in the morning. I was sitting on the balcony of my house in Chattogram, watching the final session of the fourth innings from Puducherry on a small laptop screen. In the camera frame there was a crack outside the off stump—narrow, but wide enough. The left-arm orthodox spinner kept landing the ball right in that crack, over after over. There was no rush at the other end of the twenty-two yards, only patience. The batter was prodding, the ball kept taking the inside edge and running down to square leg. I wrote in my notebook: “Same spot, same angle, up to the twenty-fourth over. This man will not give up.” When the match ended, the name on the scoreboard was Shams Mulani. Seven wickets in the match, a three-wicket haul in one innings, plus 29 runs. At the end of the series, Player of the Series. Yet the next morning, thinking about India’s Test spin queue, it struck me that this award had not placed him in front of the queue—it had pushed him further inside it. That is the real tension of this story. This moment is not new to me. In 2026, covering the Wills Cup in Dhaka, I first learned that the real story of cricket is not on the scoreboard—it is in the cracks in the pitch, in the angle of a bowler’s wrist, in the face of a man sitting and waiting in a queue. Twenty-eight years of watching Ranji, Duleep and India A scorecards and streams, and of keeping a training-ground notebook, have built one habit: the notebook remembers what the highlight reel edits out. You have to understand the shape of India’s spin pipeline, otherwise Mulani’s words will sound hollow. From the Ranji Trophy to the Duleep Trophy, from Duleep to India A, and from India A to the Test team—this is a staircase, and the selectors’ eyes are on every step. The problem is that the top floor of this staircase has been rented out for a long time. Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav—all three are incumbents, all three are towards the back end of their careers. Behind them, Manav Suthar has leapfrogged ahead and made a bright start in Test cricket. Then there are Harsh Dubey, Sai Kishore and Nishant Sindhu—an entire cluster. And behind them, in the outermost ring, sits Shams Mulani. What Mulani says in the interview is the language of a mature cricketer, not of emotion. He did not say he should be picked right now. He said his name needs to be in the selectors’ minds. And he said the selection process is not in his hands—when his time comes, he will definitely get the chance. These sentences sound modest, but they are something more: a conscious signal. A clear, legitimate tactic to keep his name in the conversation just before the Ranji season. I watch the training ground first, because tactics confess themselves there. In Mulani’s case, the confession of the training ground is that he is a two-mode bowler. In the first innings he holds, varying his pace so the batter cannot settle. In the fourth innings he attacks, dropping the ball into the crack and letting the wicket do the rest. Australia A’s batters were aggressive, so the value of this two-mode plan rises further. Now the numbers. In First-Class cricket, Mulani has 279 wickets in 61 matches—roughly 4.57 wickets per match. Among elite spinners in Indian domestic cricket, the normal band is four to five wickets per match. In terms of volume, Mulani is proven, hard-working and consistent. There is no doubt about that. But the game is not played on volume alone. Look at the competition. Manav Suthar has 179 wickets in 38 matches—4.71 per match. Sai Kishore has 245 in 60—4.08 per match. Among these three, Mulani sits in the middle, a little behind Suthar. On wickets per match, Suthar is ahead, and more importantly, Suthar has already had a Test opportunity and done well. In the left-arm spin lane, Suthar is now a wall standing in front of Mulani. This is where Mulani’s real asset comes forward, and it is not his bowling—it is his batting. In First-Class cricket he has 2,632 runs at an average of 31.71. The normal benchmark for a lower-order all-rounder is 25 to 30. Mulani is above it. This is not just a good statistic; it is a different identity. What India’s selectors prize most in home Tests is the two-in-one profile—someone who can bowl and also score runs. Mulani is another version of the Jadeja-Axar model. So his door to selection will not open through bowling; it will open through batting. Look at the five-season wicket trend: 45 in 2026-22, then 46, then 35, then 44, and 30 in 2026-26. The first four numbers show a stable band—35 to 46. That is consistency, not a breakout. In other words, Mulani is a proven domestic workhorse, but there is no single season in which he has staked a claim and sat on it. And the last number—30—is the biggest warning. If the season is complete, it is a downward deviation from his baseline of about 44. If the season is still ongoing, the number means nothing. Before verifying that, it is improper to use the word ‘decline’. Age also matters. Mulani is 29. Spinners usually peak between 28 and 34. He is in his prime right now. That is a big advantage for him, but it is also the pressure of time. Because the timing of Jadeja’s retirement is uncertain. If Jadeja plays another three years and Suthar cements the slot, Mulani’s window will narrow. If a 29-year-old spinner does not get an opportunity within two seasons, there is a risk that his peak years pass without a cap. The Australia A series matters here. Mulani himself said seven of them had played Test cricket before, and the side was led by the 20-Test veteran Peter Handscomb. So this was not an ordinary domestic score. Being the best player in a series against a genuinely strong ‘A’ side means winning a currency with the selectors—and in the Indian system, that currency is the recognised one. Even so, I think the crowd in the queue is the bigger story. There is an old line in my notebook: I wrote the rhythm in the margin before the crowd heard it. In this story, that rhythm is the wait for selection, and the crowd is the left-arm spin lane. Jadeja, Axar, Suthar, Mulani—almost all of them are left-arm spin. Mulani is not filling a rare niche; he is standing in the most crowded lane in Indian cricket. This reality caps his selection probability no matter how good his form is. There is also an administrative dimension that usually escapes the eye. The BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru—before the series, Mulani received clear role briefings from Sunil Joshi and Rishikesh Kanitakar. This is not mere courtesy. It shows that the Indian system is institutionalising ‘A’-tour preparation—who will do what in which conditions is decided in advance. This structure may raise the conversion rate of domestic standouts into Test caps in future. There is a dignity in Mulani’s words that I like. He did not say he had been dropped, that he had been wronged. He said he had returned to India A after two years and had done his job. This kind of statement comes only from a mature player who knows how the queue works. From Chattogram, this is what I see—waiting for selection is itself a profession, and a player’s character is forged inside that waiting. Now to the part that outsiders easily misread. Being the best in the series makes many assume the name will be first in line for the next Test. The reality is the opposite. Player of the Series is an award, not a guarantee of promotion. Mulani’s performance came on a cracked, spin-friendly pitch in the fourth innings at Puducherry. On such a pitch, playing a left-arm spinner is itself a conditions-driven decision. Whether the same performance would repeat on a seaming or flat deck is something we have no evidence for. The second misreading is bigger. Many see Mulani as Jadeja’s successor, as if a chair is empty and waiting. But the reality of the queue is that Suthar, Dubey, Kishore and Sindhu are all standing there, and their profiles are almost identical. The succession to Jadeja is not a certain inheritance; it is a timing-dependent opportunity that rests on many threads. And one thing must not be forgotten: returning to India A after a two-year gap means there was a selection trough before. The story of ‘waiting in the wings’ sounds smoother than it is. He was out of the side very recently, and has come back with a two-match burst. This is a re-entry spike, not yet a trend. Here a personal rule of mine applies, one I learned during the empty-stand days in Chattogram in 2026. I never publish a player’s private crisis without consent. The same principle applies to Mulani. What he did not say, I will not put in his mouth. What he did say—selection is not in my hands—is informative enough, and it says the most about him. Read from the Bangladesh context, this story opens another layer. Bangladesh also has a crowded left-arm spin lane—Taijul Islam, Nasum Ahmed, Tanvir Islam, and the young Rakibul Hasan. Our problem is the opposite of India’s: their pipeline is so deep that worthy men get stuck in the queue; ours is so shallow that talent is lost before it rises. Mulani’s story is therefore a lesson for Chattogram’s young spinners—consistent volume, plus batting, plus conditions-neutral performance; without these three, the queue does not move. It is also worth thinking about why an ‘A’-tour award still matters. The commercial gravity of the IPL pulls media and selectorial attention towards white-ball cricket. Yet the Ranji-Duleep-India A ladder still works, because home Tests need spinners. Mulani is not making a claim on any IPL currency; his claim rests on red-ball volume and a batting average. The absence of any IPL reference for a 29-year-old domestic spinner is itself information. Another line from my notebook is relevant here: every team has a pulse; my job is to hear it before kickoff. The pulse of the Indian spin queue is slow right now, but steady. Jadeja and Axar are ageing, Suthar is planting his feet, and behind them an entire group is waiting. Mulani is the most mature version of that waiting—he makes no noise, he just keeps landing the ball in the same spot with patience. One thing about the selection process needs to be made clear. India’s domestic system is so deep that a spinner with 279 wickets can still be stuck in the queue. That is good news for India, because it means the spin reserve is strong. But for an individual player it is ruthless. One fast-rising peer can keep an entire slot closed for years. If Suthar cements his Test place, the ‘next left-arm spinner’ slot could close for three to five years. That is Mulani’s biggest risk, and it is not a form risk—it is a structural risk. So looking forward, five signals are clear to me. First, Mulani’s final wicket tally in the 2026-26 Ranji season—whether 30 is final or incomplete. Second, Jadeja’s and Axar’s workload and retirement signals—their rest or absence in home Tests could open Mulani’s window. Third, Suthar’s Test continuity—if he stays, the slot stays closed; if he is dropped, it opens. Fourth, Mulani’s performance on seaming or flat decks—this is needed to reduce the conditions-dependence risk. And fifth, his re-selection in the next India A squad, because that keeps the promotion currency in circulation. The last word belongs to Mulani himself. He said that when his time comes, he will definitely be chosen. This confidence is not arrogance; it is arithmetic. A 29-year-old spinner, 279 wickets, an average of 31.71—he knows his record is fine. His real fight is not with the record, it is with time. And no one beats time—you can only keep landing the ball with patience, right in that crack, over after over. When the queue moves, he will be ready. The question is not whether he is ready; it is whether the queue will move at all.