Current spin stocks in world cricket

[Buffet]

I was looking at the ranking thread posted by MIG in PP. Something jumped out to me.

Among the top 10

• Jadeja - 2nd rank
• Ashwin 4th rank
• Lyon - 7th rank

10 -20 rank

• Yasir - 15th
• Shakib - 17th
• Maharaj - 18th
• Ali - 20th

We have 7 spinners appearing in the top 20. Given that most teams play 1-2 spinners , but play 2-3 pacers, it's a really high number for spinners in the top 20.

I don't recall having so many spinners in the top 20 earlier, but I may be wrong here. Do you think that teams are giving spinners more chance or pitches are normally more spin friendly in general? Or quality of spinners have gone up?

How many times you see spinners from Aus, BD, SA, Eng, Pakistan and Ind appearing among the top 20 rank at the same time? If 7 spinners were mostly from 1-2 teams then we can look into scheduling of tests and all that, but we have 6 countries putting spinners in the top 20 right now. A very unique situation, but just relying on my memory here. What do you think?

 

[R0H1T]

The spin playing ability is an all time low, plus DRS. Take the best batters of 80's & 90's & this list would be cut in half.

Jadeja, Lyon, Yasir, Maharaj would be my picks in that case, Ashwin will have to find his mojo back if he's to prove his utility away from home.

 

[Buffet]

The spin playing ability is an all time low, plus DRS. Take the best batters of 80's & 90's & this list would be cut in half.

100% agree with DRS heling spinners. It's a great point. Earlier eras batsmen used to use their pad instead of bat without worrying about getting out so I am too sure about how great all of them were despite having some good record. I am sure that many of them relied too much on pad to protect in past and they would have been in trouble in current era.

Sure, some were simply too good and they would have thrashed spinners, but I am talking about in general.

 

[R0H1T]

100% agree with DRS heling spinners. It's a great point. Earlier eras batsmen used to use their pad instead of bat without worrying about getting out so I am too sure about how great all of them were despite having some good record. I am sure that many of them relied too much on pad to protect in past and they would have been in trouble in current era.

Sure, some were simply too good and they would have thrashed spinners, but I am talking about in general.

Attacking players could do better in this era, with T20 shots, but of course they wouldn't be nearly as consistent as they were back then. Defensive ones would be more like sitting ducks but Gavaskar, Miandad, SRT, Viv, Sanath, Laxman, Border, Ganguly, Lara would do well.

All of the above had good defense & excellent strokes against all kinds of spinners, I haven;t included lesser players of spin, many of them.

 

[IndYeah1]

The spin playing ability is an all time low, plus DRS. Take the best batters of 80's & 90's & this list would be cut in half.

Jadeja, Lyon, Yasir, Maharaj would be my picks in that case, Ashwin will have to find his mojo back if he's to prove his utility away from home.

Ashwin's problem is his inconsistency. When he's in rhythm, he's really good. An example was during the tour to West Indies, and the home series vs England. Simply outstanding - had the ball on a string. drift, loop, turn, bounce, it was all there. Variations without overusing them. Plans that worked over good and bad batsmen alike. Has struggled with a hernia injury since then, so maybe that's a part of it. But the guy does tend to have peaks and valleys as a bowler.

 

[ManFan]

Imagine if Warnie or Murali played in this ERA... Probably beat Sydney Barne's average.

 

[Napa]

100% agree with DRS heling spinners. It's a great point. Earlier eras batsmen used to use their pad instead of bat without worrying about getting out so I am too sure about how great all of them were despite having some good record. I am sure that many of them relied too much on pad to protect in past and they would have been in trouble in current era.

Sure, some were simply too good and they would have thrashed spinners, but I am talking about in general.

Attacking players could do better in this era, with T20 shots, but of course they wouldn't be nearly as consistent as they were back then. Defensive ones would be more like sitting ducks but Gavaskar, Miandad, SRT, Viv, Sanath, Laxman, Border, Ganguly, Lara would do well.

All of the above had good defense & excellent strokes against all kinds of spinners, I haven;t included lesser players of spin, many of them.

DRS + Neutral Umpires took the "pad defense" option away for batsmen.

 

[Nikhil_cric]

Spinners are doing only relatively better because it's very hard for fast bowlers everywhere with the kind of pitches and bats that we have.

 

[Princejain191]

I don't think players are any worse at playing spin

I think conditions in India, Bangla and SL are probably as bowling friendly in tests as they have ever been been. India has a low scoring pitch every second match, Bangla now believes that it can win and so is preparing more result oriented pitches and SL has amazing variety in pitches.

Rules are also more conducive to spin bowling now than they ever were. Players are given LBW even when the batsman is 2 metre out of the crease. DRS helps too.

Spinners are more versatile. Every spinners has atleast 4-5 types of deliveries while bowling.

 

[Buffet]

I also think that pitches are a bit more suited for spinners.

 

[UN talkz]

Can't just understand one thing... Yasir took 16 wickets against SL and still remained at 15 in bowlers ranking. Strange

 

[dani2k]

The T20 generation relies more on not going to the pitch of the ball to meet it and play accordingly. Aggression has become the motto of young batsmen more suited for the shorter versions of the game. Spin playing technique is not as good as it used to be.

So this has ensured more wickets for spinners who can have aggressive fields set in a test match and be patient. Because they know that most batsman would be aggressive against them and that gives them a chance to get wickets. Of course the other factors mentioned above are more important than what I have mentioned but this factor would become more and more prominent as more and more younger batsmen with techniques suited to the Shortest formats play (or try to play) test matches

 

[squarecut]

Can't just understand one thing... Yasir took 16 wickets against SL and still remained at 15 in bowlers ranking. Strange

Performance in one match cannot dramatically take one from bottom to top. It will only help him climb up from his previous ranking. How players are ranked are explained here:

https://www.icc-cricket.com/about/cricket/icc-rankings/player-rankings

 

[Buffet]

Can't just understand one thing... Yasir took 16 wickets against SL and still remained at 15 in bowlers ranking. Strange

120/3 - Pretty sure that you will lose many rating points for picking 3 wickets at 40 runs on average , specially if you are in the top 20 rank.

51/5 - He should have gained many points due to this performance.

184/6 - 30+ avg here and it may have helped to hold to current rank, but you can't get too many points with this to move up.

47/2 [ SL was bowled out for 96 runs. If he had taken wickets at same rate then Pakistan would have lost by a huge margin. If you are going to give half of those runs with just taking 2 wickets, then I sure that he was penalized for this performance and lost rating points ]

One inning out of 4 helped him to gain points, but other 3 innings didn't. Other 3 innings pretty much ensured that he lost many points. I don't know what was his rating points before this series, but it should somewhere close to the current level.

 

[Buffet]

Yasir rating points before this series - 698
Yasir's rating points after this series - 704

So he gained few points, as I was speculating, but not too many points. It's in the same range. Morkel is ranked 14th with 722 points right now so there is a bit of gap between 14th and 15th rank. If it was a tight range then even 6 points gain can help top move.

Just for reference, 14th - 7th rank is in very tight range with only 25 points gap covering everyone. Clearly, one big series performance can lift Yasir in the top 10.