Spinners have been a crucial part of the playing XI of all teams in the Indian Premier League. A team couldn’t win matches on Indian Pitches without having stalwart spin candidates on their side. But, in such a big requisite, Kolkata Knight Riders is the only team who consistently dominated throughout the seasons with their spin heavyweights like Sunil Narine, Piyush Chawla, and Kuldeep Yadav, Shakib Al Hasan & now Varun Chakravarthy.
The most wicket-taking spinner in the history of IPL is Amit Mishra & Piyush Chawal, who represented India in the era of MS Dhoni’s captaincy.
Indian playing conditions usually stay dry, slow & dusty, which intrinsically assists Spinners in the Tournament. Pitches of venues like Feroz Shah Kotla, Eden Gardens & M Chinnaswamy stadium have more help for spinners. Many foreign spin candidates trained themselves for the competition of the Indian Premier League but delivering a high quality that also consistently is not a privilege of every spinner.
At the beginning, a few high-quality spinners like Shane Warne, Anil Kumble & Harbhajan Singh had done it for a long time for their franchises. But, today, in such high-quality batting, it is almost unachievable.
Let’s take a look at 5 top spells of spinners across all seasons of IPL.
#1 Anil Kumble 5/5 RCB vs RR in 2009
Anil Kumble bagged the No. 1 position in the list of top spells of spinners. He used to be so staggering in the initial seasons of IPL when he played for Royal Challengers Bangalore. However, in the league encounter of the 3rd season, Anil Kumble shocked the whole cricketing fraternity, as he picked up 5 wickets by just leaking 5 runs in a spell of just 5 overs. This is a complete record of Kumble picking a 5 wicket haul in such a cheap economy through the whole spell.
#2 Adam Zampa 6/19 CSK vs SRH in 2016
The figures of Aussie turner Adam Zampa hit the position of No. 2. He was on the new verge of his IPL debut in 2016 as he was playing only the 2nd match of the season. But though he was fresh blood in the circuit, he outperformed all the other great bowlers by getting to the magical figure of 6/19 in 4 overs with a brilliant economy of 3.50 in a high run conceiving tournament like IPL. He helped Chennai restrict SRH on a total of 137/8. However, CSK chased it down on a significant loss of 8 wickets that they could have won easily.
#3 Amit Mishra 5/17 DD vs DC in 2008
In the inaugural edition of the IPL, Amit Mishra had clinched his maiden hat trick of IPL against Deccan chargers. First, he dismantled the likes of Shahid Afridi & Herschelle Gibbs and later took 3 in a row by getting the wickets of Dwaraka Teja, RP Singh & Pragyan Ojha. In the end, Deccan Chargers failed to reach the target of 195 by just 12 runs due to the extraordinary bowling of Amit Mishra.
#4 Shane Warne 4/21 RR vs DC in 2010
The then Rajasthan skipper had reaped through the mighty batting of Deccan Chargers. Batting first, Rajasthan scored 159 runs in their allotted 20 overs, and later the magical bowling had curbed Deccan chargers just 2 runs before the target. He took the wickets of batters like Anirudh Singh, Dwayne Smith & Ryan Harris.
#5 Yuzvendra Chahal 4/25 RCB vs KXIP in 2016
At No. 5, Yuzvendra Chahal comes into the list; in a second met up with Kings Xi Punjab, he grabbed 4 wickets, and RCB beat Punjab with a dominance of bat & ball. King Kohli scored a century of 113 runs in just 50 balls, and RCB got up to 211/3 in just 15 overs(DLS). But, later, Yuzi Chahal walked into bowl and didn’t give a single chance of comeback to Punjab. Instead, he produced the figures and 4/25 and made RCB victorious by 82 runs.
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