Spinners' resurgence in IPL 2025: Lengths and speeds the key, says Chawla

Spin has had a bigger say in IPL 2025 than it did in IPL 2024.

After 50 matches this season, they had 220 wickets at an average of 30.02. At the same stage last season, they had taken 154 wickets at an average of almost 37. Overall, they had taken 39% of all bowler wickets by the 50th game, compared to 27% last year.

Why, though?

Piyush Chawla, still the third-highest wicket-taker in IPL history (192, behind Yuzvendra Chahal and Bhuvneshwar Kumar), feels it has to do with the heat around India to a large extent.

"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 might not only be about the conditions. Like everyone else in the circuit, spinners have also done their thinking, their research, and brought about tweaks.

"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."

As elaborated on ESPNcricinfo by S Rajesh, the change is most evident in the middle overs. This season, spinners have 44 more wickets in the middle overs after 50 matches compared to last year, and have bowled more than 61% of the overs in that phase. In IPL 2024, quick bowlers took 138 wickets in the middle overs compared to 127 for spinners, but the numbers have been flipped in 2025: spinners have taken 171 and quick bowlers 106.

"Shreyas Iyer is one example, who has got good reach, so even if the ball is a little further away from him, he can still manage. But most of the batters, they don't get that kind of power behind [their shots from such positions]. The spinners have become smarter the way they have started pulling their lengths [back] and the pace also," Chawla said. "Pace is playing a big role here. Because they are pulling their lengths back, you don't want somebody to go on the back foot and pull you through midwicket and square leg. So you want to make sure you are bowling somewhere around 90-odd (kph), so even if they go on the back foot, they just have to nudge it around for one or two. That's playing a big role."

Not to forget the Impact Player rule. The swap is typically between a batter and a fast bowler, in whatever order, but Chawla wants spinners to be given a go in the powerplay, more than we have seen them in that phase so far.

"Because you have the extra option of a fast bowler with the Impact Sub and then there are a lot of players who… if there is one Indian who is opening the innings, as a captain they think that they play spinners really well and then spinners can go for plenty," Chawla said. "And if you really want to bowl a spinner, you have to have that kind of experience to bowl in the powerplay, because it's not an easy job to do. Or the first or second over, because that is, I feel, in T20 cricket the easiest overs to bowl. You can use your spinner there."