Stats: Top 10 bowlers with most dot balls in IPL history

Perhaps, the most underappreciated aspect of cricket is the importance of a dot ball. Preventing the opposition from scoring runs is extremely significant in building pressure which can result in wickets. In particular, the shortest format of the game demands accuracy and consequent parsimonious spells from the bowlers.

Since its inception in 2008, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has spawned ten successful seasons thus far. While the focus has mostly been on batsmen capable of clearing the boundary with consummate ease, bowlers possessing the ability to deliver game-changing performances have also attracted the attention of fans and franchises alike.

But bowlers, who have time and again created palpable pressure on opposition lineups by building sequences of dot balls, usually slip under the radar. An analysis on enumerating the top ten bowlers with the most number of dot balls in the history of IPL has thrown quite a few interesting names at the top.

With as many as 1075 dot balls, seamer Praveen Kumar leads the list across all ten editions of the tournament thus far. The Mumbai Indians duo of Lasith Malinga and Harbhajan Singh are joint-second in the all-time tally. They have delivered 1060 dot balls each in the popular Twenty20 league. These three proven stalwarts are the only bowlers with more than 1000 dot balls in IPL history.

Even though he has picked up only 90 wickets from 119 IPL matches, Praveen Kumar has prevented the opposition batsmen from scoring in 1075 balls out of his total tally of 2524 deliveries. However, his economy-rate of 7.72 is substantially lower than the likes of Malinga and Harbhajan. He has represented Royal Challengers Bangalore, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), Kings XI Punjab and Gujarat Lions thus far.

South African speedster Dale Steyn occupies the fourth spot in this particular list. When compared to the other leading bowlers, his dot ball ratio is exemplary. Out of his 2058 deliveries in various seasons of IPL, 978 have been dot balls.

A troika of Indian spinners take up position numbers five to seven. While Amit Mishra and Piyush Chawla have bowled 953 and 910 dot balls respectively, Ravichandran Ashwin has turned 891 of his 2290 deliveries into dots. It is pertinent to note that the economy-rate of the wily off-spinner is significantly better than the two leg-spinners. From his stints with Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and the now defunct Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS), he has picked exactly 100 scalps in the tournament.

From 100 IPL matches, Zaheer Khan has sent down 2200 deliveries and converted 873 of those into dot balls. With 835 dots, Irfan Pathan holds the number nine spot in this frugal set of bowlers. Ranging from CSK and Kings XI to SRH and RPS, he has played for plenty of franchises in his T20 career.

Having delivered 832 dot balls from his overall tally of 1981 deliveries, Bhuvneshwar Kumar rounds off the top ten. He has prominently featured for SRH as well as the now defunct Pune Warriors. His economy-rate of 7.08 is comfortably the best among all Indian fast bowlers in the history of IPL.