Middle-overs are always a crucial aspect of any T20 game, be it from the perspective of a batting or a bowling side.
For the bowling side, they would like their bowlers to not only stem the flow of runs but also pick wickets in the phase, while for the batting side, it is about ticking runs and finding frequent boundaries. In either case, they need strong players to perform in this phase.
In this format, the spinners are those who bowl most in this phase of an innings, and they are likely to be among the wickets more often than not. Things are no different as far as the IPL is concerned, as spinners accounted for more wickets in the middle overs (7-16).
Let us delve more into the top 10 bowlers with the most wickets in the middle overs (7-16) in the IPL.
Most Wickets in Middle Overs (7-16) in IPL
| Player | Innings | Wickets | Economy Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yuzvendra Chahal | 158 | 157 | 7.59 |
| Piyush Chawla | 188 | 143 | 7.81 |
| Amit Mishra | 160 | 140 | 7.14 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | 202 | 130 | 7.45 |
| Ravichandran Ashwin | 194 | 113 | 7.04 |
| Rashid Khan | 120 | 109 | 6.55 |
| Harbhajan Singh | 153 | 101 | 6.95 |
| Sunil Narine | 174 | 93 | 6.31 |
| Axar Patel | 146 | 90 | 7.08 |
| Dwayne Bravo | 150 | 71 | 7.60 |
Key Insights
7 bowlers have taken 100 or more wickets in the middle overs of an IPL innings, and Rashid Khan’s economy rate of 6.42 is the least among those on the list. And for a bowler with at least 60 wickets in the phase, Sunil Narine’s 6.32 is the lowest.
Yuzvendra Chahal, who is currently playing for the Rajasthan Royals, has accounted for the most wickets during this phase, and he is the only one to have taken over 150 wickets. He did so at an amazing average of 21.48. (Check out Yuzvendra Chahal’s year-wise performance in the IPL here.)
4 of the top 5 bowlers on this list are all leg spinners, and only Ravindra Jadeja among them bowls his left-arm orthodox spin. In this full list, 9 of these bowlers are spinners, while only Dwayne Bravo bowls pace.
