The collective mindset of the cricket world has focused all its energies on getting the mix right for the World Cup next year Down Under. It’s to be expected, as the 50-over extravaganza will kick off in February next year and teams only have a handful of months to zero in on their combinations.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that since pitches in Australia and New Zealand will be fairly quick, the focus should be on picking the best quick bowlers and batsmen who can score against them. But one-day cricket nowadays is such that one can pick a team according to ones strength and not worry too much about the conditions.

Most pitches nowadays are on the flatter side, with only the bounce varying according to which part of the world you are playing in. Since it’s ODI cricket, runs are always given a priority so teams should not obsess about finding seam bowling all-rounders or batsmen with a solid front foot defence.

Also, what they should definitely not do is discard their spin options. Tweakers have suddenly come to the fore in international cricket and one believes it’s a trend that is here to stay for a while. 

England off-spinner Moeen Ali pulled the rug from under India’s feet in his team’s comprehensive Test series win despite being seen as a part timer.

Ravindra Jadeja was the pick of the bowlers in India’s win in the Cardiff ODI. Rangana Herath is single handedly winning series for Sri Lanka home and away across formats. And yesterday, Zimbabwe spinner Prosper Utseya took five wickets, including a hat-trick, against South Africa and gave them a mighty scare.

Interestingly, when Australia didn’t field frontline spinner Nathan Lyon in their ODI tri-series match on Wednesday, the South Africans chased down a 328-run target with 20 balls to spare.

All these developments point to the fact that spinners can be entrusted with a lot more than just a holding job. Patience levels have gone down in limited overs cricket and with batsman having no pace to work with while facing spinners, they are beginning to find quality tweakers harder to swat away. Ugly swipes against quicks tend to go to fine leg or third man for a four. Spinners get wickets on them.

So when teams sit down and finalise their core group for the 2015 World Cup, spin should be seen as a potent weapon and not a dispensable option.