Top 5 limited-overs spinners in world cricket

Spinners have always hadacrucial role to play in the middle overs in ODIs and after the invent of T20s their importance have improved drastically. There have been instances of teams even going in with three spinners in a limited overs game. Such is the confidence a captain hasthese days on the tweekers.We have many decent spinners plying their trade for their country andlet us see who is the best among them.Special Mentions: Rangana Herath, Mohammad Hafeez,Imran Tahir.Here are the top 5 limited-overs spinners in world cricket at the moment:

#5 Samuel Badree

The Twenty20 specialist from West Indies. Operating in the powerplay overs, the leggie with his googlies is a threat to any opposition and has the best economy rate in the shortest format of the game. Not giving any width to free the arms, the 33-year-old Trinidadian will tie down the batsmen in the powerplays with the field up.

He is increasingly troubling the batters with his spin and is probably a bit underrated in comparison with the other leading spinners in world at the moment. Badree has an impressive 26 dismissals in 16 T20 internationals at an economy rate of 5.19 since 2013.

#4 Ravichandran Ashwin

The tall off-spinner is one half of the Indian spin duo that operates in tandem in the middle overs. Ashwin cleverly uses his carrom ball in disguise with his off-spinners and has proved to be greatly successful. His experimentations on the leg-stump line are more useful than what it looks. Despite not being the big-spinner of the ball, he has guts to flight the ball even in the powerplay and death overs that highlights his class.

Ashwin has 11 wickets from 7 matches in T20s but has registered 50 dismissals in 38 one-day matches since the turn of 2013.

#3 Ravindra Jadeja

The left-arm spinner from India has come leap and bounds since his debut and is now the go-to-man for Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Has grown above Ravichandran Ashwin in terms of impact on the game and the stats prove the same. With a simple bowling action from a short run-up, he doesn’t complicates things and largely relies on a wicket-to-wicket line. His persistence in line and length is noteworthy despite getting hit in one odd game.

The 25-year-old has picked up 63 wickets in 43 ODI matches since last year but not that very effective in the T20 format with only 6 scalps in 7 outings.

#2 Sunil Narine

West Indian mystery-spinner comes the second best in the list. His ability to keep the batsmen guessing is helping his performances and he himself has admitted that the cautious approach by his opponents is helping him in a big way. Not many introductions needed for his canny ability to fox the batsmen, inviting loose shots by deceiving them in the flight.

Since 2013, the Trinidadian has taken 32 wickets from 29 ODI matches and 22 from 18 T20Is. Despite the numbers not raising any eyebrows, he is ranked no.2 in the ICC ODI player rankings which confirms his superiority.

#1 Saeed Ajmal

The Pakistan off-spinner withhis variations has outsmarted several top batsmen in recent times. The man who made his international debut at the age of 30 has been on a steady rise andtrusted his skills to come out unscathedagainst the best. Since 2013, Ajmal has 73 scalps to his name from just 38 ODI matches at an impressive average of 20.13. The latest example for his mystery is the high profile game againstRest of the World. Playing for Marylebone Cricket Club,he picked 4/45 including his countrymate Shahid Afridi for a duck.

He has outclassed his fellow competitors by a long way in terms of consistency. He also have 14 T20I wickets in 13 matches.