Kevin Petersen‘s struggles against left-handed spinners are well-documented. Since making his debut in Test Cricket in 2005, Pietersen averages 61.8 against right-handed spinners, whereas he averages a mere 40.1 against left-handed spinners. The difference in the two averages is 21.7, which is indeed quite significant. But is the weakness against left-handed spinners unique to Pietersen, or are there other batsmen who have fared worse against spinners of a particular handedness?
To answer this question, we analyzed the data for all the Test batsmen for their performance against spin bowlers since 2002. To ensure that we do not fall into the trap of small sample size, we consider only those batsmen who have faced at least 500 legal deliveries against both left-handed and right-handed spinners in Test Cricket.
The following table lists all the batsmen who fare worse against left-handed spinners by a margin more than that of Pietersen:
| Batsman | Batting side | Against righty spinners | Against lefty spinners | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IJL Trott | Right | 190.00 | 51.57 | 138.43 |
| Shoaib Malik | Right | 100.67 | 43.33 | 57.33 |
| RT Ponting | Right | 104.08 | 63.69 | 40.40 |
| Misbah-ul-Haq | Right | 75.90 | 42.80 | 33.10 |
| Younis Khan | Right | 86.65 | 58.93 | 27.72 |
| JL Langer | Left | 59.50 | 33.55 | 25.95 |
| HM Amla | Right | 69.00 | 43.88 | 25.13 |
| MEK Hussey | Left | 73.59 | 51.00 | 22.59 |
And the following table lists all the batsmen who fare worse against right-handed spinners by a margin more than that of Pietersen:
| Batsman | Batting side | Right | Left | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GP Thorpe | Left | 36.60 | 351.00 | 314.40 |
| G Gambhir | Left | 38.58 | 230.00 | 191.42 |
| AG Prince | Left | 24.06 | 161.50 | 137.44 |
| JA Rudolph | Left | 34.87 | 112.33 | 77.47 |
| R Dravid | Right | 69.38 | 124.67 | 55.29 |
| N Hussain | Right | 39.14 | 92.33 | 53.19 |
| TM Dilshan | Right | 41.66 | 88.44 | 46.79 |
| ML Hayden | Left | 49.77 | 96.14 | 46.37 |
| ND McKenzie | Right | 49.08 | 88.33 | 39.25 |
| RR Sarwan | Right | 46.62 | 79.50 | 32.88 |
| ME Trescothick | Left | 42.07 | 74.86 | 32.79 |
| AJ Strauss | Left | 32.41 | 64.80 | 32.39 |
| SR Tendulkar | Right | 54.30 | 85.36 | 31.05 |
| A Kumble | Right | 13.89 | 42.00 | 28.11 |
| AC Gilchrist | Left | 37.83 | 63.91 | 26.08 |
| SC Ganguly | Left | 40.28 | 63.83 | 23.56 |
Clearly, Pietersen’s struggle against left-handed spinners is a problem not unique to him alone, but affects many other batsmen as well. Interestingly, most of the batsmen who struggle against left-handed spinners bat right-handed. And it does turn out that most of the batsmen who struggle against right-handed spinners bat left-handed. This indicates that there is a possible “platoon split” (borrowing a terminology from Baseball) for batsmen when playing against spinners: On an average, batsmen tend to perform poorly against spinners with the opposite handedness.
To verify this hypothesis, let us look at the average of left/right handed batsmen against left/right handed spinners for all the tests played 2009 onwards. The numbers are summarized in the table below.
| Bats left | Bats right | |
|---|---|---|
| Lefty spinner | 42.60 | 34.01 |
| Right spinner | 30.92 | 41.76 |
The data confirms that there is indeed a platoon split for test batsmen against spinners. Left-handed batsmen, on an average, score almost 8 runs more against left-handed spinners per out as compared to right-handed spinners. A similar effect is observed for the right-handed batsmen as well.
This happens to be a more recent phenomenon. If we look at the performance of test batsmen since 2002, then the platoon split effectively disappears for right-handed batsmen. However, left-handed batsmen still show a considerably worse performance against right-handed spinners than left-handed spinners, as shown in the table below.
| Bats left | Bats right | |
|---|---|---|
| Lefty spinner | 44.94 | 34.58 |
| Righty spinner | 36.28 | 34.73 |
To summarize,
- The struggles of Kevin Pietersen against left-handed spinners are not unique to Pietersen alone, and there are other batsmen who similarly struggle against spinners with a certain handedness.
- In recent years, there is a pronounced “platoon split” for test batsmen when playing against spinners: on an average, batsmen perform worse against spinners of opposite handedness. More specifically, left-handed batsmen generally tend to struggle more against right-handed spinners.