Back in fashion: fingerspin's resurgence in ODIs

After June 18, 2017, India seemed to have drawn a line in sand. Having failed to defend 321 against Sri Lanka in a league game of the Champions Trophy, and having conceded 338 against Pakistan in the final, they decided to make a clean break without expressly saying so. One of the three sides without a wristspinner in that tournament, they went on to leave out two legends of the game - R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja - in favour of two rookie wristspinners who vindicated the decision by making India the most-threatening bowling side in the middle overs.

India were a little late to catch on, but when they did they bought into it more than any other side. Six years later, India incredibly started the World Cup with both Ashwin and Jadeja in the XI, who bowled 20 overs for 62 runs and four wickets between them.

Whatever has happened has not happened to India alone. Playing more wristspinners was a global reaction to the new field restrictions of one fewer fielder on the fence, outlawing of "suspect" actions, and two new balls. In 2015, wristspinners bowled a fourth of all spin bowled in ODIs, but it kept increasing from 2016 inwards to a point where two of every ball of spin were wrist spun. Since 2021, though, the fingerspinners have made a comeback with the share of wristpin going back to one in every four balls.

To those who have been keeping a close eye - and admittedly it is difficult to keep a close eye on ODIs in the years between World Cups - it came as no surprise that Ish Sodhi and Tabraiz Shamsi missed out on the first XI of their teams in the opening exchanges of this World Cup. Or that India didn't pick Ravi Bishnoi and Rahul Chahar as ODI bowlers.

There is an on-the-surface explanation for this trend. It is that wristspin has perhaps lost the novelty factor over the years, and now it is back to the best spinner who can also bat. When New Zealand lost Lockie Ferguson, the wisdom gained from 2017 to 2020 would tell you they should have played Sodhi for wickets in the middle overs, but they went for a combination of Rachin Ravindra and Glenn Phillips because they needed batting depth.

Which is why it should be no surprise that India have brought Ashwin back no matter how regressive it might seem to the naked eye: the man who got injured to open the door for him, Axar Patel, also got in because he provided batting depth.

On the surface, wristspin doesn't seem to have become any less effective, but fingerspinners have become more effective than they were. After averaging in the 40s in 2019 and 2020, they are back to hovering around 30. Their strike rate from an aggressive length of 4-5 metres has come down from a wicket every 52 balls from 2017 to 2020 to a wicket every 38 balls from 2020 to 2023. The wristspinners, on the other hand, are bowling less on that length, going shorter and more defensive.

One of the reasons wristspin is such a hit in T20s is that they have an extra fielder outside, which in the famous words of Ashwin, allows bowlers to bowl "well-constructed bad balls".

Fingerspin is a more exact and repeatable skill, which allows you to have more control of where you land the ball but less mystery after that. It is incredibly difficult to release wristspun deliveries perfectly; apart from the wrong'un, that imperfect release creates a mystery of its own. As a batter, you have less time to react to that imperfect release, and the bowler is able to protect the boundaries with an extra fielder out. That doesn't work in ODIs.

Even at the height of the wrist-spin fad, left-arm spinners stood their own because there are more right-hand batters in the world and they take the ball away from them. Jadeja, Mitchell Santner and Keshav Maharaj are examples of that. These bowlers have actually got better at attacking the batters since 2020. They are the only kind of spinners who extracted more average turn in 2021-23 than in 2017-20. It could be because they have bowled slightly slower on an average.

However, the average spin tells you the pitches have not contributed to the resurgence of offspinners; if anything, pitches have turned less since 2020. In a discussion on ODI bowling recently for The Cricket Monthly, Tom Moody spoke about the defensive role of the offspinner, by bowling into the hip of the right-hand batter, which is a sound tactic. However, they have subtly moved left, ending up from middle-off to top of off and just outside if you compare beehives from 2017-20 with those from 2021-23.

The control percentages have come down against fingerspin, and their strike has improved appreciably when they have batters defending. It is definitely a credit to their improvement in order to stay relevant in the game. Ashwin has come back with variations, for example. Mehidy Hasan Miraz has improved his control.

That control is becoming a valuable commodity once again. Most importantly captains are recognising the importance of spinners who can put the ball where they want because increasingly the point-of-difference bowlers are the quicks. That is why 0 for 58 is not unequivocally worse than 2 for 76, which would have been the belief three years ago.

Having said all that, a good spinner is still a good spinner. Kuldeep Yadav doesn't offer runs with the bat, but he gets in because he is that good. The only difference now is that teams want more depth, and when push comes to shove, it is the wristspinner who gets the boot and not the fast bowler, provided they have equal batting skills. For us it is a new trend; for those on the inside, it is one of those cyclical things.

It takes one big wave to delete lines in the sand.