Spin it to win it

They used to say that South Africa was the deathland for spinners. There were as many good spinners in the SA team of the 90's as there were fish in the Dead Sea. It slowly started changing since the middle part of the current decade. The pitches in SA did not change much. However the spinners around the world have gradually started realising what Shane Warne always demostrated when he used to bowl in Australia and South Africa - that bounce could be as much an ally of spinners as turn.

The modern spinners have since worked with an objective to use the South African bounce. The bigger grounds in South Africa (certainly bigger when compared to the average sub-continent ground) compliment the spinners in taking help of the extra bounce. The great return of spinners in the 2nd edition of IPL showed that a new world awaited quality spinners in Springbok Land.

The available results and team performances in the current ICC Champions' trophy, in particular the India Pakistan match, spell out in no uncertain terms that the show from a team's leading spinners is going to decide the team's progress in the qualifying stages of the trophy. And with pitches likely to get more ragged durin that phase, the better spinners are likely play even more important roles in their teams' progress as the tourney nears its business end.

There is also a possibility of the script unfolding in a different fashion. The bounce is likely to go out of the pitches in latter stages. It will take some adjustment for the spinners to adopt more of a sub-continent approach (more turn, less bounce) to avoid being found out by batsmen.