Piyush Chawla impressed with the spinners’ resurgence in IPL with length and speed the key factors for the upturn.
Piyush Chawla impressed with spin and says the heat factor is also a crucial role in the spinners’ level of performances.
They have taken 220 wickets at an average of 30.02 after 50 games this season. They had taken 154 wickets at an average of over 37 at this point last season. By the 50th game, they had taken 39% of all bowler wickets, up from 27% the previous year.
“Any bowler wants to bowl with the dry ball. And you can’t really predict where it’s going to be [dewy or otherwise] and where it’s not going to be,” he said on ESPNcricinfo’s Time Out show. “If you see the weather also this year, generally… I’m coming from Delhi, and in February you don’t have your fans on; but this year, your fans were on in February. That means it’s getting hotter and Delhi is already touching almost 45 degrees (Celsius).
“So all the venues where it’s hot, the pitches are dry. No matter how much you roll it, how much you water it, eventually it gets dry, and it helps the spinners.”
It may be more than just the circumstances. Like everyone else in the circuit, spinners have thought things out, researched them, and made adjustments.
“If you see the spinners here, they are actually pulling their lengths back, rather than going too full, because now most of the batters don’t use their feet, except a few,” Chawla said. “So they [the batters] just wait for the ball to pitch up in their area, and sometimes when they don’t get a couple of sixes in two or three overs, even the ball that is not there to be hit, they go for it. And in that situation, they end up mistiming it.”