Role of leg/wrist spinners in limited overs cricket

[randycricfreak]

Why do we see most teams opting for wrist spinners over the finger spinner, who technically have a greater control over the wrist/leg spinner in LOI cricket.?

India limited overs spinners Chahal and Kuldeep have done fantastically well in LOIs, replacing two of the best finger spinners atm in cricket in Ashwin and Jadeja.

In South Africa you see Tahir playing LOIs when Maharaj is fancied in the red ball version.

Australia have been long doing that for some time,with Warney, Hogg and now more recently Zampa.While Lyon is preferred in Tests

Pakistan have also found a good all round wrist spin bowling option in Shadab Khan for LOs.

New Zealand have Ish Sodhi and Todd Astle.


Not to forget these bowlers have fared decently. The general norm was leg/wrist spinners lack control,or the control for them naturally is somewhat difficult compared to finger spinners. But we have seen leg spinners have done well and is the preferred commodity in LOs for most teams.

What are your thoughts on this? And why do you realistically thing wrist spin is a must to thrive in modern day game.

P.S-Out of the top 8 ODI wicket taking spinners in the last 3 years, there are 5 leggies

Tahir(1) 91 wickets
Adil Rashid(2) 74 wickets
Rashid Khan(3) 70 wickets
Cremer(7) 41 wickets
Zampa(8) 40 wickets

Bowling records | One-Day Internationals | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[oblongballs]

There have been a fair few top class offies in recent times too but yes, the trend is moving towards leggies and/or chinamen. They are picking up wickets so why not?

 

[fredfertang]

Wrist spinners have to be reasonably accurate, but as long as they can manage that I think the ability to turn the ball both ways is a greater advantage where the batsmen are chasing the game than when they have time to look at the bowling

 

[Firebreaker]

I think after ICC crackdown on illegal actions,More bowlers have turned into leggies

 

[Starfighter]

Wrist spinners would generally get more bounce and have a more confusing trajectory, especially tending to dip the ball more, and they also often have a greater number of variations.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Harder to score regularly when you're struggling to pick the bowler. Whereas in Tests you can hang back and play off the pitch, wait for a bad ball, in ODIs and T20s you need to score quicker.

Finger spinners bowl less bad balls in Tests but in shorter forms they are often predictable enough to be able to go big against them without as much risk as a leggie.

edit: you mentioned finger spinners are often more accurate, but look at what makes bowlers effective in T20 cricket especially. It's variation and unpredictability, even with the fast bowlers. If you bowl the same predictable areas, or same predictable ball, then the batsman can line you up.

 

[vic_orthdox]

With the extra fielders out, the poor balls are more likely to hit the sweepers for one, rather than in Test cricket.

 

[Daemon]

Tahir
Khan
Yadav
Chahal
Rashid

Zampa
Sodhi
Cremer

Not sure if Dananjaya counts but he's not done much besides that 6-fer against India anyways. Zampa's fallen away a bit if not I'd have him ahead of Adil.

 

[vcs]

Chahal is really excellent. Better than Kuldeep IMO, if we had to pick only one of them.

 

[randycricfreak]

Tahir
Khan
Yadav
Chahal
Rashid

Zampa
Sodhi
Cremer

Not sure if Dananjaya counts but he's not done much besides that 6-fer against India anyways. Zampa's fallen away a bit if not I'd have him ahead of Adil.

I think Dananjaya is more of a finger spinner, who bowls with a bit of a variety. In Dananjaya's case he bowls his stock offie and the back of the hand googly. Both of them turn in a similar way

 

[randycricfreak]

Chahal is really excellent. Better than Kuldeep IMO, if we had to pick only one of them.

Once again the wrist spinners pulling things back.

Interesting to see what Imran Tahir can do here.

Shamzi the chinaman is also in the SA squad.

 

[GuyFromLancs]

Unpredictability. T20 has led to a demand for bowlers with a box of tricks up their sleeve. Even if some of those tricks are gimmicky crap in reality.

 

[ankitj]

Chahal is really excellent. Better than Kuldeep IMO, if we had to pick only one of them.

Their records are incredibly similar so far. Nothing to choose really.

 

[JRC67]

It's much harder to play preplanned shots against leg spin. A degree of inaccuracy also helps in this regard. In test cricket there's a different risk reward for the batsmen and they are happy to wait for the inevitable 4 balls. One day and T20 particularly have probably help in a mini England leg spin revival. England have been spending money for years on schemes like the Jenner Accadamy with little reward. The likes of Alex Tucker, Patrick Turk, Theo Brooks and Will Beer have very small footnotes in English cricket history, yet were once deemed the future of English leg spin, with significant investment in there training. There are quite a few specialist young leg spinners getting exposure in the shorter format and a few leg spinning all rounders bowling a full quota of overs who would have followed the Hussain and Atherton route in the past (both promising school boy leg spinners) who became pure batsmen.

 

[ankitj]

Have right arm and left arm wrist spinners ever bowled together, like Chahal and Kuldeep? Can't be easy concentrating on their wrist all the time. One guy's googly is leg spin, other's off spin. Bevan and Warne was the other pair. But Bevan was a part timer

 

[Daemon]

SA had Tahir and Shamsi but they got rekt

 

[ankitj]

Did Brad Hogg and Warne pair up?

Edit: never played an ODI together despite significant overlap in their active years. Which is a shame!

 

[TheJediBrah]

Brad Hogg basically ended Warne's ODI career

After Hogg came in for Warne in 2002/03 (after he got banned lol) they figured they didn't really need him to play ODIs and he never did again IIRC. It's not that Hogg was better, just that Warne probably wouldn't be much better and he didn't really care to play ODIs anymore after missing the 2003 World Cup

 

[ankitj]

Yeah, Warne only returned to play the 3 match ODI series between Australia and World XI which turned out to be a massive flop tournament.

 

[Prince EWS]

With the extra fielders out, the poor balls are more likely to hit the sweepers for one, rather than in Test cricket.

Jack has been talking about this for years here, and it's basically just been a case of selectors slowly catching up.

If you turn it both ways with any sort of deception then the accuracy demands will be higher the longer the game goes for. That quickish leg spinners with decent wronguns dominate T20 cricket even if they've failed in Tests is no surprise once you grasp this.