Spinners hope to revive their mystery in IPL 2021
Chakravarthy missed his India berth due to fitness issues, but for other unconventional spinners like Kuldeep and Narine it’s about regaining their touch
NEW DELHI: “The ball was gripping the surface, but not turning much.” For an ordinary fan, grip and turn may go together. The comment from an Indian Premier League (IPL) spinner though points to a more nuanced assessment of the conditions required to click in cricket’s shortest format, in the game’s richest league. Varun Chakravarthy’s background as an architect perhaps adds to his reading of angles. In IPL 2020, played in the UAE, the 29-yearold took 17 wickets for Kolkata Knight Riders in 13 matches, at an economy rate of 6.84 and a strike rate of 18.35.
In the same interview to the official broadcaster, the Tamil Nadu player spoke of Dubai as one of the world’s best planned cities—an architect’s delight— and how he had enjoyed the bus ride to the stadium and back to the team hotel. The focus though was on Chakravarthy’s unconventional bowling, popularly tagged as “mystery” spin.
T20 cricket is still about batsmen hitting big, the sound of bat meeting ball resonating now through mostly empty stadiums in these times. So, a batsman swinging hard but only slicing through air makes for a special occurrence—Chakravarthy managed to make opponents miss regularly last season. The 29-year-old from Chennai gave up trying to be a professional cricketer and became an architect, and then returned to the game; to counter attacking batsmen in the Chennai lower divisions and the Tamil Nadu T20 league, the leg-spinner developed a style replete with variations—off break, leg break, carom balls, googlies, flippers and top spinners. Before the 2018 IPL, he got a chance to bowl at the CSK nets, and was spotted by KKR skipper Dinesh Karthik and the team’s analyst. In the 2018 auctions, Chakravarthy, with a base price of ₹20 lakh, was bought by Punjab for ₹8.4 crore, before joining KKR in 2020. Varun’s mystery was mostly about subtlety and he got MS Dhoni twice in two matches.
In the first clash, Chakravarthy pitched it up and Dhoni swung only to find his old power and speed had deserted him. He misjudged the length and was bowled. In the return game, Dhoni made room to work to the off-side but the quicker delivery produced extra bounce, beat the bat and clipped leg-stump.
The mystery was all about not telegraphing the delivery to the batsman. Winning the personal battle was “surreal” for Chakravarthy though the teams won one game each. The icing on Chakravarthy’s season was not to be, and that somehow is the theme for the mystery bowlers going into this IPL. He was chosen in the India T20 squad for Australia but was out due to a shoulder injury. Left-arm pacer T Natarajan, the replacement, enjoyed his time under the Australian sun.
It would have been particularly depressing as Chakravarthy’s 17 scalps included a fivewicket haul in beating Delhi Capitals, as batsmen repeatedly mishit to be caught. For Chakravarthy, it was not about teams deciphering his bowling but his fitness falling below the line set by Virat Kohli’s team. His hopes for a second chance to play for India—in the home series against England—was dashed when he could not clear the fitness tests.
But for many other mystery spinners—basically bowlers who have a lot of variations to fall back on—it’s about batsmen figuring them out. It needs only a season for players and analysts to sit together and learn what a bowler is doing. Unlike a conventional spinner looking to work the conditions and relying on line and length, a mystery spinner’s main weapon is unpredictability. Take that away, and they are in trouble. Ask Chakravarthy’s KKR teammates Kuldeep Yadav and Sunil Narine. They both head into this IPL with their bowling stocks and their confidence dipping rapidly.
Both must win personal battles to stay relevant. Yadav’s fall has been steep, especially because Narine’s utility is higher as a pinch-hitter. Yadav was one half of the wrist-spin combine with Yuzvendra Chahal when the India team management in 2017 turned away from the finger spin of Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin in white-ball cricket. It didn’t prove a strong theory and Jadeja returned in time for the 2019 ODI World Cup.
Even at his best, Yadav has been a confidence bowler. That belief has ebbed away in the last IPLs. After taking 17 wickets in 2018—Kuldeep’s most productive season—he took only four wickets in 2019 and one scalp in the five matches he got for KKR in the UAE.
He was not selected for the T20s in Australia and against England. In Australia, he did not get to play at all. Against England, he played two ODIs on flat Pune pitches, did not take any wickets, was hit all around, and dropped for the final game.
KKR have kept faith in the 26-year-old, but his hopes for the T20 World Cup will hinge on a huge turnaround in the IPL.
In the second ODI in Pune, Yadav went for 0/84 in India’s defeat, after returning 0/68 in the first tie. Sanjay Manjrekar, in his comments for espncricinfo after the loss, felt the bowler should have bowled his wrong ‘un to right-handed batsmen with more intent, on a pitch where the ball didn’t turn much.
Kuldeep Yadav’s potency has gradually declined in T20s. CricViz data shows that in 2014, he drew 23.7% false shots. That number was 25.6 % in 2016, but slid to 17.5% in 2017, 20.8% in 2018, 16.3% in 2019 and 17.1% last year. In major T20s since 2019, the false shot percentage from his bowling is only 16.5, while taking 11 wickets. Chakravarthy drew only 15.4% false shots but took 18 wickets at an average of 21.72. Yadav’s average was 44.27.
Narine took only five wickets last year as KKR were edged out of the playoffs on net run rate.
Young Afghan spinner Mujeeb ur Rahman is another example of an unconventional spinner—he bowls traditional offspin but also legspin and googlies—whose variations have lost its mystery for batsmen. After a rich haul of 14 wickets in 2018, he took three from five games in 2019 and got just two games for Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in IPL 2020, going wicketless.
As IPL 2021 kicks off, it will all be about rediscovering the mystery.