The Warne factor in the IPL

Spinners have had a huge role to play in IPL 2009, but one bowler hasn't quite made the impact you'd have expected in conditions in which many other, lesser bowlers have done extremely well. Shane Warne has been an inspirational captain, no doubt, for Rajasthan Royals, plotting brilliantly with limited resources, and coaxing the best out of his young and inexperienced players. As a spinner, though, he has been overshadowed by others, many of whom have none of his experience or class.

With 14 wickets from 12 matches, only four bowlers have taken more in this competition, but Warne's wickets have been relatively expensive, at a relatively high economy rate, especially in the context of a tournament which have seen several low scores and several matchwinning performances by spinners.

Among spinners who have taken at least eight wickets, Warne's average is worse than all but two other bowlers, Harbhajan Singh and Piyush Chawla, while his economy rate of 7.41 is poorer than everyone else in the list. Some of that is also a function of how he bowls, tossing it up and inviting the batsmen to have a go, but on these slow pitches bowlers who've adopted a more defensive approach have had plenty of success as well. Rohit Sharma's 11 wickets have come at an average of 11.45 and an economy rate of 6.63, both of which are outstanding by Twenty20 standards. His bowling index (average multiplied by economy rate) is better than anyone else's among those in the list below.

Next in the list is Shadab Jakati, Chennai Super King's left-arm spinner who has taken 103 wickets in 41 first-class matches at an average of 36.38. Anil Kumble and Muttiah Muralitharan are in the top five, but so is Pragyan Ojha, a bowler who has played only nine ODIs for India.

Warne has hardly bowled during the Powerplay overs in this IPL, keeping himself mostly for the eight middle overs. He hasn't taken too many wickets during this period, but that's also because most batsmen would prefer to play him off and look to take more risks against other bowlers. In the last six he has gone at nine an over, but has also taken more wickets.

As you'd expect, Warne has had more problems keeping the left-handers in check than the right-handers. With the stock ball coming in to them, the left-hand batsmen have had it much easier against Warne, getting him away for 136 runs from 96 deliveries and losing their wickets to him only five times. Against right-handers, on the other hand, Warne has kept it much tighter, and struck more often as well.

The table below further illustrates the point: among the six batsmen who've played ten or more deliveries from him in this IPL and scored at eight or more per over, five are left-handers. Irfan Pathan, Suresh Raina, Matthew Hayden, Yuvraj Singh and Kumar Sangakkara have all been pretty successful against Warne, while Andrew Symonds is the only right-hander who has dominated Warne. On the other hand, S Badrinath and Virat Kohli have utterly struggled against him. Sachin Tendulkar had a memorable battle against him, but Warne clearly won that won, conceding eight runs from as many balls and dismissing him once.

A few Australians have joined the IPL after their series against Pakistan, but the one who has undoubtedly shone brighter than the others is Symonds. In four innings he has scored 174 runs at an impressive average and an outstanding strike rate. Symonds is quickly moving up the run-getters' chart, and his strike rate means his batting factor (average x strike rate) has been bettered only by four batsmen (among those with at least 150 runs). In the top 15 there are four Australians, which is a pretty healthy percentage. Only India have as many players, while South Africa have three.