Where are Indian off-spinners in IPL 2023?

Chennai Super Kings off-spinner Moen Ali was the Man Of the Match for his four-wicket haul against Lucknow Super Giants earlier this week. The off-spinner troubled the batters with his guile and pace variations. On the contrary LSG off-spinner Krishnappa Gowtham bowled a solitary over in the first innings and was smashed for 20 runs.
Off-spinners are becoming an endangered species in Indian cricket. Apart from Ravichandran Ashwin and Washington Sundar, the crop seems to have dried up. With leg-spinners and left-arm spinners preferred in both white-ball and red-ball cricket, offies have fallen behind in the race.
White-ball cricket
In the modern game, the bats have got bigger and most wickets are flat which makes the margin of error for off-spinners minimal, especially in white-ball cricket. However, leg-spinners and left-arm spinners have so far been able to manage it.
“You can see in the matches so far, pitches have not offered any kind of spin and the finger spinners especially are not getting any purchase. Apart from Ashwin, the rest of off-spinners have struggled so far in the season.
Still too early to say but the wr spinner has the upper hand in this format as I told you as a bowler, you need to be ahead of the batsman in this format,” Bengal off-spinner Aamir Gani told the Indian Express about the off-spinners in the ongoing IPL.
“See, any spinner will get hit on a given day. Off-spinners are much easier in the sense they get into the arc because a lot of cricketers are good at hitting sixes to cow corner. So it is a natural shot as off-spinners get into that slot very easily,” former India off-spinner and Tamil Nadu coach M Venkataramana said. But at the same time, “on a good day with a little help from the track, they might be lethal sometimes.”
“To bowl against hard-hitting batsmen, you need good skill as an off-spinner or you should have the ability to come back strongly when the batters hit sixes. The management also has to back off-spinners,” Venkataramana added.
The 26-year-old Gani believes that having 2-3 variations is vital to survive as an off-spinner in white-ball cricket. A leg-spinner has the googly and flipper as variations while an off-spinner has the carrom ball and doosra, but they are difficult to master. With the ICC’s strict rule on bending the arm, many off-spinners have found it harder to master variations.
Ashwin has tried to bowl leg-spin as a variation to right-handers in white-ball cricket as an element of surprise. Apart from that, the 36-year-old is one of the finest exponents of the carrom ball.
Red-ball cricket
Off-spinners are finding it tough to make their mark in red-ball cricket as well, even on the domestic circuit.Gani believes that for an off-spinner to be successful in red-ball cricket, he needs to be accurate. “As a bowler playing first-class cricket, the most important thing is accuracy. The main weapon is the stock ball that will bring you wickets. If you can maintain an economy rate of 2.3-2.5 in first-class cricket, wickets will come. Even if the pitch is helpful, you need to have the ability to bowl in one area consently.”
The off-spinners trying to survive in the shorter formats use several variations and even if the execution goes slightly wrong, they often get away with it as the field is spread. However, this option is rarely there in red-ball cricket and a boundary from a poor ball releases pressure on the batsmen.
Former Tamil Nadu cricketer Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan, when asked if white ball cricket is behind the relative lack of off-spinners in comparison leg-spinners and left-arm spinners in red-ball cricket, agreed, while adding another reason.
“We have also become a fast-bowling country. Now we have a lot more fast bowlers coming into the system. Spinners are not getting games because of that too. A lot of spinners of previous generations bowled at least 25-30 overs a day. But a lot of bowlers now bowl only 10 overs in an innings. To get a 100, you need to bat at least 5-6 hours. To get a five-wicket haul you need to bowl 30 overs. Rarely will you get a 5-wicket haul in 10 overs.”
Both Gani and Sivaramakrishnan believe that the Ranji Trophy’s scheduling in the calendar year is not allowing spinners to bowl a lot either. The season is played in winter in most parts of India – from November to February. The wickets help fast bowlers more and it becomes difficult to give a spinner long spells. In those cases, the secondary skill of a spinner becomes important. His contributing 60-70 runs with the bat will help the team considerably.
The quality of right-handers coming through from the domestic system is also something to ponder upon. The current India Test top order mostly has right-handers. The emergence of left-handed middle-order players from the domestic system also might encourage teams to field left-arm spinners and leg-spinners over off-spinners.
“They go through a difficult situation because the team management may not choose an off-spinner. So they don’t get a good run (games) these days. They play an odd match here and there and then get dropped because of the team’s strategy and things like that. They need proper encouragement and backing,” Venkataramana concluded.