Generally, in T20 cricket, the teams around the world have this tendency to pick the wrist spinners in the playing XI, citing the fact that the wrist spinners can spin the ball both ways and they don’t necessarily need a dry surface to spin the ball. The wrist spinners can also beat the batsmen in the air with their loop.
All these arguments are generally right and are pretty valid. While the finger spinners rely on the surface to provide them some sort of assistance to make an impact in the game, it doesn’t apply to the wrist spinners as they can make impact on flat surfaces as well.
But, as everyone knows IPL 2020 is going to be held in UAE and UAE is a unique venue. While most of the pitches around the world in T20 cricket are generally flat, that’s not the case with UAE pitches.
The UAE pitches don’t offer even bounce to the batsmen to play their shots on the up, but what also makes the UAE pitches tricky for batting is the fact that the ball sticks into the surface there. That’s where the finger spinners come into play because they use the surface more than the wrist spinners.
The wrist-spin is not a lot about the surface, it’s about the loop. It’s about getting the ball above the eye-line of the batsmen and then getting it down before the batsmen could reach the pitch of the ball. Because of their reliance on loop, the wrist spinners often lose control over their lengths as well.
Modern day finger spin, on the other hand, is not about loop. It’s about using the surface and that’s why the finger spinners have more control over their lengths than the wrist spinners. However, they are not as penetrative as the wrist spinners if the surface doesn’t assist them.
But, in UAE, the surface will assist the finger spinners in almost all the games and in that scenario, the finger spinners might turn into attacking options and won’t just be used in the defensive role to contain the batsmen.
Since the ball will stick into the surface in UAE, it won’t be easy to go across the line against the finger spinners and it won’t be easy to play on the back-foot either because as a batsman, you are not really sure about the bounce of the ball after pitching. Most of the pitches will have uneven bounce.
The finger spinners, in comparison to the wrist spinners, will have more control over their lengths anyway and since they are expected to get plenty of assistance from the surface as well in UAE, they might turn out to be more effective than the wrist spinners in IPL 2020.
