Pacers Or Spinners: Who is performing better at Mumbai Pitches?

 

The dew factor.

Dew appeared to be a key factor immediately, as expected in the tournament preview. It seems to vary in severity throughout the four sites, making teams hesitant to bat first after winning the toss. A similar trend developed after the initial set of matches in the 2018 IPL season: captains elected to chase each time in the first ten games four seasons ago, and the chasing side won nine times. The advantage was skewed heavily in the first week, with the teams chasing winning 7 of the eight matches. However, the team setting the target won the subsequent four encounters. The trend has again reversed since then. In the 2022 edition, with 22 matches concluded, 14 have been won while chasing, whereas eight have been won by defending the total.

Scores over 200 have been successfully chased down twice this season. Dew's impact has been far less at the MCA stadium in Pune and the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai than at Brabourne and DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai. The dew affects both pacers and spinners, but they are a considerable hindrance for spinners, making them less effective.

The Pacers are ruling the powerplay.

Despite only having two outfielders, fast bowlers have bowled remarkably well in the powerplay in the first 22 games. Pace bowlers have bowled most of the deliveries in this phase, taking more than 90% of the wickets and restricting batters to a limited score. Umesh Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Trent Boult, and Prasidh Krishna have used the conditions well to their benefit. They have bowled match-winning stints with new green pitches, plenty of bounce, and unusual movement in the air and off the seam. Wankhede has produced the best results, with fast bowlers taking more wickets than any other pitch in the powerplay; quick bowlers have found the open-air pitch in Pune to be the most economical, conceding 5.46 runs per over. 

Good economy by spinners

In the middle overs, we have seen that Spinners have kept the hitters quiet, conceding runs with a meager economy and scooping up a few wickets. While they were not among the biggest wicket-takers in the first week, wrist spinners have now started dominating batting line-ups, controlling the flow of runs, and picking crucial opposition wickets. They had an economy rate of 6.61 in the first week, seeing a marginal rise to 7.35 per over now but with more wickets in hand.

The spinners are bowling at good line and length, not giving much room to the batsman, forcing them to play risky cricket shots, and we can expect their wrath to increase as the game proceeds in the second half of the game. 

We have already seen some extraordinary performances by the likes of Wanindu Hasaranga, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Rahul Chahar, Murugan Ashwin, and Ravi Bishnoi, who are taking wickets too. The current purple cap holder is a spinner, Yuzvendra Chahal, with 11 wickets in 4 matches.

Pitch supports Pacers

The Maharashtra pitches, namely Brabourne, Wankhede, and DY Patil, favor the pacers for the time being as they are red soil pitches. The other stadium with black soil is Maharashtra Cricket Association in Pune, and it will host only 15 of 70 matches. The most prominent characteristic of red-soil pitches is the bounce it offers, and whenever there is bounce, the ball tends to travel further. This is the biggest factor helping pacers succeed much more than spinners, and they are proving to be a bigger match-winner than spinners. So, we can conclude that pacers are doing a better job than spinners as of now. However, the spinners are already doing a good job, and as the tournament proceeds, we will surely get to see complete dominance of spin over pacers.