{"id":872,"date":"2013-09-20T02:29:10","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T06:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/?p=872"},"modified":"2013-09-20T02:29:10","modified_gmt":"2013-09-20T06:29:10","slug":"amit-mishras-claim-about-leg-spinners-is-not-quite-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/amit-mishras-claim-about-leg-spinners-is-not-quite-true\/","title":{"rendered":"Amit Mishra’s claim about leg spinners is not quite true"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amit Mishra<\/a> made the following comment after the qualifying match<\/a> of Sunrisers Hyderabad<\/a> against Faisalabad Wolves<\/a> in the ongoing Champions League T20<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“I have always believed that since a legspinner has more variations, it is tougher for a left-hander to play him …” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is certainly an interesting comment, coming from a leg spinner himself. I decided to check this claim of his: do left-handed batsmen indeed find it tough to play against leg spinners?<\/p>\n

Last year, we had shown the existence of a “platoon” split for spinners<\/a>: batsmen usually tend to perform worst against spinners of opposite handedness, at least in Test Cricket. So one would expect that leg spinners (who are also right-handed bowlers) will show a similar pattern, and therefore will have better statistics against left-handed batsmen than right-handed batsmen.<\/p>\n

However, it turns out that this is not really the case. The table below shows the bowling average split for leg spinners against left\/right handed batsmen in four formats of the game since 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t
Format<\/th>Average against lefty<\/th>Average against righty<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Test <\/a><\/td>49.6<\/td>45.8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ODI<\/a><\/td>38.5<\/td>29.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
T20I<\/a><\/td>29.2<\/td>20.7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
TWENTY20<\/a><\/td>29.4<\/td>23.9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n

This indicates that leg spinners actually perform slightly worse<\/em> against left-handed batsmen as compared to right-handed batsmen, and this is consistent across the different formats of the game. <\/p>\n

Maybe Mishra was not talking about leg spinners in general, but about his own bowling performance? Let us look at the career bowling average split for Amit Mishra against left\/right handed batsmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t
Format<\/th>Average against lefty<\/th>Average against righty<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Test<\/td>41.2<\/td>43.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ODI<\/td>18.0<\/td>21.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
T20I<\/td>21.0<\/td>-<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
TWENTY20<\/td>21.8<\/td>19.8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n

Mishra’s own splits are slightly better against left-handed batsmen, which I guess is the point he was trying to make in his post-match interview: that he can bowl as well against lefties as he can against righties. So while his claim about leg-spinners being better against lefties in general is not true, it is at least marginally true in his own case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amit Mishra made the following comment after the qualifying match of Sunrisers Hyderabad against Faisalabad Wolves in the ongoing Champions League T20: “I have always believed that since a legspinner has more variations, it is tougher for a left-hander to play him …” This is certainly an interesting comment, coming from a leg spinner himself.… Read More »Amit Mishra’s claim about leg spinners is not quite true<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883,"href":"https:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions\/883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cricmetric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}