A continuation of a series of posts on spinners in county cricket, parts 1&2 can be found here and here
The statistics for this post don't include the last round of county matches, so in most cases will cover the first 12 games of the 14 game 2023 county season. I've only looked at front line spinners, which I've defined as bowlers who have bowled at least 150 overs. 13 bowlers have have met the front rank criteria. (Dawson, De Caires, Harmer, Leach, Parkinson, Quadri, Thompson, Swepson, Hartley, Carson, Bess Gohar and Keogh). The best average amongst the 13 is Liam Dawson at 21.81 and Simon Harmer's 54 wickets is the most taken by any spinner. Josh De Caires (AKA Mike Atherson) is a new name with a distinctly good 26.5 average (second best amongst front line spinners.)
As a group the spinners have taken 320 wickets at an average of just over 36 runs a wicket. That compares with an average for all bowlers of 31.7. Wickets taken by front line spinners make up 10% of total wickets and are taken at 4.5 runs higher than the average for all wickets.
Accordingly compared with the June post front line spinners have taken 2% more of total wickets to fall (10% compared to 8%) and have reduced the average runs per wicket by 1.7 runs a wicket. And if we look just at the data since the last post spinners have been taking wickets at an average of 34 runs a wicket. I think this suggests (but doesn't prove) that spinners fare better in late July to early September than they do earlier in the year, that is what I would expect as pitches get drier.
The problem for spinners is that we don't play much CC cricket in July and August. Surrey who will (almost certainly) be repeat county championship champions only play part time spinners and that might have started a trend.
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