Top spinners in modern day cricket

After the retirement of the trio of Muttiah Muralitharan, Anil Kumble and Shane Warne, there was a brief period when spin bowling seemed to be on the decline. The advent of the shortest format of the game did very little to help their cause as the format was ostensibly a threat to the existence of spinners. The art of a spin bowler, involving elements like flight and variation of pace, was little cared for in a format where the price of a wicket was trivial. The batsman is always prepared to take on a spinner as he feels he can hit him out of the park.

However, the game has a unique way of reproducing itself and the talent within it. Spinners are now a major constituent of the shorter form of the game even though the set of skills that they possess has undergone a major change. They rely on the wrong one to be a wicket-taking delivery, and bowl much flatter in order to contain the flow of runs.

The game has also given birth to an entity called the ‘mystery spinner’, who boasts of six different variations for the six deliveries he has to bowl in an over. The longer format of the game continues to be the platform where their orthodox set of skills are tested. The mystery spinner is yet to prove himself in this arena.

Here is a list of the top spin bowlers playing the game currently in all formats of the game:

4. Sunil Narine

The West Indian has plied his trade in the shorter formats of the game and very successfully. He has a fledgling Test career but the figures are promising as he has scalped 15 wickets in the five matches he has played, but he still has to prove himself in that arena against quality oppositions. He is one of the new breed of the ‘mystery spinners’ and yet he’s not much of a mystery in one sense. He does not have numerous types of deliveries but he bowls the orthodox deliveries with a twist.

He bowls his off spinner with a scrambled seam, which means that his wrong one is not easy to pick. Unlike most off-spinners who bowl the doosra from the back of the hand, giving the batsman a chance to spot the delivery from the manner of its release, he bowls it from the front of his hand.

It is not the number of his variations that is a problem but the quality with which he executes them. He shows great control and accuracy which make him really difficult to get away. His economy in ODI cricket is 4.00 whereas it’s below 6.00 for T-20′s which is a rare feat.

3. R. Ashwin

The Indian off-spinner has displaced Harbhajan Singh as India’s primary spinner. He made his Test debut against the West Indies in 2011 and finished with nine wickets in that match and has not looked back since. His statistics augur a very bright future for him. He has 92 wickets in Test cricket in just 16 Test match appearances whereas he has 76 scalps in 54 ODI’s at an economy of 4.77 runs per over.

He struggled briefly in his Test career when he toured England where he was trying to do too much, bowling a lot of variations and digressing in line and length. He made immediate corrections as he returned to home soil with a vengeance.

He is one of the few exponents of the carrom ball in International cricket and keeps adding deliveries to his repertoire. He uses the bowling crease to great effect and thinks on his feet.

2. Graeme Swann

The English have struggled to produce a quality spinner in the past but they have turned it around in the last few years. It was Monty Panesar at first who grabbed the headlines with Ashes success, whereas Graeme Swann became a consistent fixture in the side soon after.

Swann started his Test career in 2008 when England toured India and scalped four wickets in the match with England ending on the losing side. The experience he gained in India improved him considerably and he rattled the Australians in the Ashes. In 2009, he became the first English spinner to take 50 wickets in a calender year.

He is orthodox in his approach and does not do anything particularly bamboozling with the ball in the manner of mystery spinners, but his control over the traditional aspects of spin bowling – flight, drift, speed variation – is impeccable. He is equally effective bowling to right handed and left-handed batsmen. His record of 222 wickets in 52 Test matches is an indication of the success he has had in the last three years.

1. Saeed Ajmal

Pakistan have produced a number of great spinners over the years – Abdul Qadir, Mushtaq Ahmed and Saqlain Mushtaq to name a few. Saeed Ajmal is the deserved successor in this line. He had a few problems with his bowling action in 2009 when the umpires objected to his doosra, but that claim was quickly dismissed and his bowling action was given a clean chit.

He helped Pakistan complete a historic series win in England last year and picked up 24 wickets in the three-Test series. It is said that spinners mature later in life and that has been the case with Ajmal, who has only played 26 Tests at the age of 35.

But his statistics speak of his success. He has taken 133 wickets in the said 26 Tests and is an even greater threat in ODI’s with 132 wickets in 84 matches at an economy of just over 4.00 runs an over. It is a pity that Pakistan do not play a lot of cricket in a calendar year, given their inability to host matches at home, as we are being deprived of the skill of a great master of spin bowling.