IPL 2018: Spinner the 8 teams are banking on

It is often said that spinners form the backbone of any cricket team and the saying holds true even in case of the Twenty20 format where the batsman’s willow power is seen as the deciding factor often. Especially when spinners hunt in a pack, it becomes all the more encouraging sign for the teams. Of late the wrist spinners have seen a revival and all the major international and T20 teams feature them as batsmen find it extremely difficult to read this class of spin.

In the eleventh edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) starting on April 7, a lot of eyes will be on the spinners playing for the eight participating teams as their combined efforts could differentiate the winner from the rest. Here we look at the spin bowling prowess of all the eight teams for IPL 2018:

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB):

The side captained by Virat Kohli will look to win its first-ever IPL title (RCB have lost as many as three finals) and spinners like Yuzvendra Chahal, Murugan Ashwin, Moeen Ali and Pawan Negi will be important in that pursuit. Chahal, with 70 IPL wickets in his kitty, will spearhead RCB’s spin department and the fans will be hoping that the man delivers from the word go.

Negi, who has 30 wickets in this format, will be a handy support for Chahal. Negi did well in RCB’s disappointing campaign last year and his decent batting skill is an added advantage.

Murugan (8 wickets) and Washington Sundar (7 wickets) will be the supporting spinners while Englishman Ali, who is playing his first IPL, is expected to get a few games to prove his worth both with the bat and ball. Offies like Pavan Deshpande and Aniruddha Joshi will be expected to chip in to give the regular bowlers the odd breaks here and there.

Pros: Presence of spinner like Yuzvendra Chahal who is at the top of his game in international cricket at the moment. There are also a fair number of spinners in the squad to be used if any of the frontline bowlers get injured.

Cons: The spin bowling lineup seems to be dependent more on the likes of Chahal and Negi while the backup bowlers are more inexperienced.