This season, spinners aren't winners

Bengaluru: Though only three spinners have ever finished an Indian Premier League season with the Purple Cap in sixteen prior editions, tweakers have enjoyed loyalty and added responsibility from their captains historically. 

This largely is because spinners, at least those of the finger-spinning variety, have more control, have an uncanny ability to dictate the tempo in quick time, and when the captains are running behind over-rate, they tend to bail them out.

But spinners can also turn into a liability because should the pitch not grip, stick and/ or the boundaries be small, they can come off looking like they walked into an uninvited party.

No team has been more emblematic of this reliance on spinners than Chennai Super Kings, and that’s largely because MS Dhoni has hinged on them to get a grip on the situation. Oftentimes, the Chennai skipper has brought them on inside the power play period and forced them to bowl tight lines to tidy things up. 

In the six games Chennai have played thus far, only 39 overs have been sent down by spinners, and 22 of those overs have been bowled by Ravindra Jadeja. Last season, Dhoni had used spinners for 54 overs by the same time.

In every single CSK match so far, Jadeja, who is the only spinner to have featured in all their games, has come onto the bowl the first over after the power play. One could argue that he has done so well so far that Dhoni has not had to rely on other spinners. 

Apart from Jadeja, Maheesh Theekshana has played three games and Moeen Ali has played one where he bowled three overs. Rachin Ravindra has bowled two overs so far. Lest we forget, the only instance where Ali and Ravindra got to bowl was when Mustafizur Rahman and Matheesha Pathirana missed their games. 

This phenomenon, odd as it may seem, is not restricted to CSK alone. The overarching, inescapable reality is that every other team seems to be relying less and less on spinners.

After the conclusion of 33 games, spinners have bowled 400 overs and picked up 93 wickets while pacers have bowled 851.2 overs for 281 wickets. At the same juncture last season, spinners had bowled 530 overs for 163 wickets, and the seamers had sent down 761 overs for 237 wickets. 

What’s even more perplexing is that this trend comes despite spinners being far more economical than their pacy cousins. Spinners have gone at 8.36 runs an over, while the seamers have conceded 9.65 runs every over. 

One has to take strike rate, in this context, with a pinch of salt because while the seamers have done better in that area, they have also had more chances to bowl and have been given longer spells to work with.

Another factor which is reflective of this drop-off is that there is only one spinner on the top-15 list of the highest wicket-takers. While that honour belongs to Yuzvendra Chahal, who is one scalp behind table-topper Jasprit Bumrah (13) from 26 overs, the next on the list is Sunil Narine, who has bowled 24 overs for seven wickets. 

Even in the top-15 best figures in a match list, there are only four spinners who break in with Chahal (3/11), Krunal Pandya (3/11), Ravindra Jadeja (3/18) and Kuldeep Yadav (3/20).

“I think it’s because of the dimensions of the ground and the size of the boundaries,” India bowling coach Paras Mhambrey tells DH. “Also, these are high-scoring pitches. They are belters, you can’t expect spinners to play huge roles here, but I do see that captains have more faith in seamers this IPL.”

Mhambrey’s take doesn’t really answer the question at hand because most of the grounds used this season were in use last season too. But the only difference is that pitches this season have played more true. 

That does also explain why over 10 spinners have confused the speed-gun by bowling at over 100 kmph. Last season, only Jadeja, Krunal and Axar Patel (all three left-arm spinners), went beyond that mark, but this season even the wrist spinners like Chahal and Kuldeep have gone past that mark. In fact, Lucknow Super Giants’ Manimaran Siddharth, another left-arm spinner, almost exclusively lives in the region beyond 100 kmph. 

Spinners of all kinds are looking to stay relevant by bowling it flat and into the batter to cramp them so they tend to become less of a wicket-taking option. At the same time, seamers are bringing out a new slower-ball variation each day to blur the deception point. It’s all about adaptation after all. 

Another reason for the decline in overall numbers is that only three full-time spinners have been brought on as 'Impact Players' so far, meaning slow-ball wielding seamers have found preference when teams have looked to defend totals.    

Perhaps as the pitches grow tired, the spinners will be brought on more and more, but as it stands, it’s not a good look. That's not even accounting for how this pattern could alter the psyche of spinners in the grand scheme of things.