Spin on the rise in IPL Powerplays

one game in IPL 2013 to reinforce that spin will again have a big role to play in the tournament. Sunil Narine, the Player of the Tournament last year, and the most economical among all IPL bowlers who've bowled at least 250 balls, took another four-wicket haul and Man-of-the-Match award: since the beginning of last season, Narine has four such awards from 16 matches, a rate bettered only by Chris Gayle (five in 15).Narine was clearly the star of the show, but Shahbaz Nadeem and Johan Botha, the two spinners for Delhi Daredevils, did a fine job too, with combined figures of 3 for 44 in 7.4 overs. In all, the spinners took 7 for 57 in 11.4 overs in the match; the seamers had combined figures of 6 for 196 from 27 overs. With the Eden Gardens pitch being a typically slow Indian surface, and likely to get more spin-friendly as the tournament progresses, this is one venue where spinners will continue to flourish. And there'll surely be a few other venues similar to this one, ensuring that slow bowling continues to be the flavour of IPL 2013, like in previous years.A look at the overall economy rates for spinners in each season indicates that they adapted pretty well, and pretty quickly, to the requirements of this format. In 2008, they went at 8.19 runs per over, and were marginally more expensive than the seamers. The next year, in South Africa, their economy rate dropped to 6.76, much lower than the rate for seamers, and since then spinners have been more economical than seam bowlers in each season.The difference in the economy rates between pace and spin in 2009 was surprising because the tournament was hosted in South Africa, a country where conditions have traditionally helped seam and swing. However, the IPL was hosted late in their season, by which time the pitches had lost much of their bite and had become slower, assisting spin. Since then, teams have slowly discovered that taking pace off the ball is a pretty good option in these 20-over bashes.

It took only