IPL 2025: From Kuldeep to Rathi, spinners defying matchups in the league

Kolkata: In an age where T20 is pretty much defined by matchups, the onus is on bowlers to stay at least a step ahead of batters. Not easy when you consider the lengths batting sides are going these days. Batters are focusing more on strike rate than aggregates while also converting quick starts, driving up the par scores every season. Middle overs aren’t consolidatory anymore. And left-right batting combination is being tried as a jailbreak solution to every challenge.

To counter this step up in aggression, pacers have come up with innovative variations but spinners aren’t behind as well. Change in pace is proving to be deceptive, but equally effective remains the discipline to hit the correct lengths. Kuldeep Yadav is the best example. One of the biggest criticisms levelled at the current generation of spinners is that they lack in wicket-taking ability but Yadav is an exception. Second on the wicket-takers tally with 11 scalps, not only has his economy been almost the same to both left-handed (6.9) and right-handed (5.5) batters in this IPL, the dot ball percentage (44.4% to rhb, 37% to lhb) too has been great as well.

A wicket ahead of Yadav is another left-arm wrist spinner Noor Ahmad who has an economy of 4.7 and a dot ball percentage of 47.3% against left-handed batters but both are almost doubled against right-handed batters. Two reasons can be attributed to this discrepancy. Ahmad has a mean googly, and the Chennai pitch does aid more turn than other turfs. At the core of his success however is the pace with which he can hurry batters but also go for more runs if the batter connects right. Yadav’s slowness had made him very difficult to hit in the initial phase of his career. But as he matured, Yadav has incorporated more speed that could have contributed to the reduction of turn but on the flipside has allowed batters less time to adjust.

That, and the ability to hit the defensive good lengths, has allowed Yadav to not only be economical but also aggregate a superb dismissal rate, striking every 12.8 balls against right-handed batters and every 13.5 balls against left-handed ones, in this IPL. “Length is very important, and it’s been like fourth year with DC, so nothing changes,” Yadav had said earlier this month. “You mature after playing so many games and understand what your strength is and obviously, spinning the ball is my strength and just keeping it very simple and just focusing on the length.”

Varun Chakravarthy is cut from the same cloth, but with a small difference—all his 10 wickets have come against right-handed batters. Which is far from implying that left-handed batters have it easier against him, even though KKR may have been deliberately shielding him (he has bowled 126 balls to rhb compared to 36 against lhb). Overarchingly significant however is the economy Chakravarthy has aggregated—6.4 to right-handed batters and 5 to left-handed batters—underscoring his intent of choking the runs if he can’t take wickets.

The lengths are more or less similar to Yadav’s and like the googly, a go-to delivery in Chakravarthy’s arsenal is the ball that turns sharply into right-handed batters. But the element of surprise attached to it to both right-handed and left-handed batters has been explained very fittingly by Chakrvarthy. “Basically, the ball can deviate in three ways: left, right or straight,” he had said at Eden Gardens last month. “So how I choose those balls, the sequencing of it—that’s where the tactical side of the game comes from and that’s what I’m working on.”

Not everyone is skilled to do that but even close to that works these days. That making the ball go away still remains the most effective strategy is evident in how left-arm bowler Krunal Pandya has an impressive dismissal rate (14.4 balls) against right-handers but neither his average (23.8) nor his economy (9.9) to them makes Krunal best-suited for all scenarios. Among overseas spinners, Narine’s numbers are witnessing a similar disparity in the context of more left-handed batters trying to hit him through the line after clearing their front leg. That explains his economy of 9 against lhb, compared to 6.5 against rhb.

And then there is a work in progress like Digvesh Rathi, who seems almost hardwired to bowl good length or thereabout. Result? An impressive economy and dot ball percentage—6.5 and 36.7% and 7.4 and 28.4%—against both left-handed and right-handed batters. The dismissal rate against left-handed batters (25.6, compared to 15.3 against right-handers) still has scope to improve but considering he already has the scalp of his idol Narine, Rathi will take it any day.