Spinners have adapted extremely well to T20s: Kris Srikkanth

NEW DELHI: The impact of spinners in the Indian Premier League has been well-documented, starting from legspinner Amit Mishra claiming three hat-tricks over the last 10 seasons, and the likes of R Ashwin and Axar Patel having benefitted from the T20 League before eventually going on to play for the Indian national team. Even the likes of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav, who have stamped themselves as India’s first-choice spinners in the shorter format, owe plenty to their stints with Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders as reason behind their rise as world-class spinners.
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Former India batsman Kris Srikkanth, in his Monday’s column for TOI, highlighted the impact of spinners behind the success of their respective franchises. While mentioning the impression the likes of Ashwin and Sunil Narine have had behind Chennai Super Kings and KKR lifting the titles twice, Srikkanth stressed on the value spinners bring to their sides.
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“When a third format was added (T20) it was largely seen as the final nail in the coffin for spinners around the world. A good 14 years after the launch, the slow bowlers have found refreshing ways to combat broad bats, benign tracks and smaller boundaries to emerge as the key component not only T20s but white ball cricket in general,” Srikkanth wrote.
“We are into the 11th season of the most competitive T20 league in the world, and the numbers available now are a fair sample size. Among the top nine wickets takers, five are spinners. The impact bowlers are also among the most economical, that also suggests that the best way to curb run flow is to pick wickets.”
Monday’s fixture pits table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad against Royal Challengers Bangalore, who, with six points from nine matches, in all probability are out of contention for a playoff berth. While Sunrisers may start strong favourites, the one thing that promises to catch everyone’s attention is the battle between their spinners – Sunrisers’ Rashid Khan against RCB’s Chahal. While Rashid has 12 wickets in nine games, Chahal’s performance has been quite bleak by his standards: seven wickets from the same number of matches.
“The second half of the tournament is where the wickets wear down a touch and the spinners have a bigger impact. Hyderabad have lost two games thus far and those are the only two games where, Rashid Khan had looked rusty. It is not Chahal’s fault that his team is not winning. To bowl in the toughest phases of the game and still be giving away only 7.81 runs per over, shows how crafty the youngster has been,” Srikkanth added.
“It should come as no surprise that the three teams to have won the title multiple times have had a tweaker spearheading their attack. If it was Ashwin who wrote the success scripts for Chennai Super Kings, it was Harbhajan Singh for Mumbai and Sunil Narine for Kolkata. And what’s more important is that spinners develop with age, add more tricks along the way and definitely command a bigger shelf life than speedsters. It is only logical that franchises spend a huge amount to build their bowling combination around these spinners.”