Are spinners doing better than seamers on the tired wickets of South Africa?

in a tournament where slow bowling seems to hold the key, and where fast bowlers seem to value the slower ball more (on another note, if you bowl four balls at 110 kmph and two at 135kmph, are you bowling four slower balls or two faster balls?), it is interesting to see who is taking most wickets and who is being most stingy?

a look at the leading wicket takers reveals (isn't that a nice sounding word for a glance down a list!) that the top five positions are held by the quicker bowlers, the first spinner (jakati) comes in at number six and there is only one other (ojha) in the top ten. shouldn't there be more? (see the list at https://www.castrolcricket.com/IPL-2009/players ) two reasons spring to mind. one, quite simply, most teams play more seamers than spinners so there are just more of them around. the second is a little more interesting because you need to see who is bowling when?

last i saw the maximum number of wickets fell in the end overs and the power plays (the 11th over phenomenon is petering out!) which of course is where the quicker bowlers tend to bowl. the less happening overs on the fall of wickets scale are the middle overs, say 7-15 where the runs per over is also significantly less. the list to look at therefore is the economy rate and see who is doing well there. not surprisingly 6 out of the top 7 bowlers are spinners (among those who have bowled more than 20 overs; if you don't, jadeja and raina feature prominently as well).

so then are the spinners doing better than the seamers on the tired wickets in south africa? or is that more in focus because no one expected it and we are all just so thrilled at the idea that spin has a prominent role to play in t20? clearly a combination of the two (taking wickets and saving runs) matters and that is why on this site we look at something called the bowling efficiency which looks at wickets taken and economy rates achieved. that is one of the factors in determining a player’s castrol index and to see where your favourite player is on the castrol index just follow the link on the home page!