IPL 2018: 3 ways in which IPL has benefited global cricket

#3 Overseas players have improved against spin bowling

Spin bowlers have always seemed to get the better of batsmen from countries outside of the subcontinent. This is not entirely surprising given the fact that the pitches in countries such as South Africa, Australia, and England are more suited to fast bowlers and seam bowlers - something which has caused these countries to bolster their stock of fast bowlers and place less attention to spin bowlers.

There is a notion that spin bowlers are only effective in the subcontinent and this could not be more untrue. Spin bowlers have proven to be match winners for countries such as India and Pakistan when they tour away from the subcontinent and the cricketing world has recently seen proof of this during the recent ODI series between South Africa and India.

India's spin bowlers dominated the series with the South African batsmen struggling to find any answers. To be fair, South Africa had a string of injuries which led to many of their big-name players missing out, but the one common feature that most of the batsmen selected had was that they struggled against spin.

Had South Africa had their first-choice batsmen available, the series might have been very different. Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers have shown that they are both capable players of spin and having both of them in the side would have softened the impact which India's spinners would have had.

This is something which the IPL has provided a great deal of assistance with over the years. More and more overseas batsmen have been learning to play against spin in subcontinent conditions, as well as to score off spinners. Players such as Steven Smith and Kane Williamson are two further examples of individuals who are good players of spin - and the list of such players keeps growing.

New talents such as Heinrich Klaasen are also getting better exposure to spin bowling and learning to play the spinners in the subcontinent. This is something which he and others like himself will use to take their game to the next level and develop their batting into a more complete package.