The wrist spinners — right-arm orthodox and left-arm chinaman — always bring a lot of charm and intrigue to a cricket match. They are supposed to hoodwink batsmen by sheer guile and dispatch them to the pavilion.
Generally batsmen tend to believe there is a big-scoring opportunity against the wrist spinners, but the fielding team’s captain deploys him as a weapon even on the most placid pitch.
Rajasthan Royals captain Shane Warne believed that there was a definite role for the leg-spinner. He took 19 wickets followed by Piyush Chawla’s 17 for Kings XI Punjab in the inaugural season.
Imran Tahir.
“Leg-break is artificial rather than natural, and is much more difficult to produce than off-break. Hence it is not surprising that exponents of it are rare, at least successful exponents,” wrote K.S. Ranjitsinhji, in ‘The Jubilee Book of Cricket’, 1897.
In comparison with finger spinners and bowlers of other ilk, there have been far fewer successful practitioners of wrist spin and it has taken 10 long seasons for wrist spinners to make a big impact in the IPL. For the first time they touched the 100-wicket mark, when KXIP leg- spinner Rahul Tewatia dismissed Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma. The 99th wicket was taken by MI’s Karn Sharma.
Rashid Khan
Out of the 15 wrist spinners seen in action in the VIVO IPL-10, only Gujarat Lions’ Shivil Kaushik went wicketless. He was ruled out of the competition with an injury after playing three matches.
The other 14 are led by Rising Pune Supergiant’s Imran Tahir (18 at 20.50); after playing 12 matches the South African has gone home. Tahir is followed by Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Rashid Khan (14 at 22.36), Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Yuzvendra Chahal (14 at 22.07), Kolkata Knight Riders’ Kuldeep Yadav (11 at 28.64), Delhi Daredevils’ Amit Mishra (10 at 29.10).
Others who have taken wicket/s are RCB’s Samuel Badree (9 at 20.89), MI’s Karn Sharma (7 at 17.71), KXIP’s K.C. Cariappa (4 at 31.75), KKR’s Chawla (3 at 39.33), KXIP’s Tewatia (3 at 11.67), RPS’s Adam Zampa (2 at 35.50), GL’s Ankit Soni (2 at 56.50), RPS’s Rahul Chahar (2 at 29.00), KXIP’s Swapnil Singh (1 at 55.00).
