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Spin is the new mantra for Twenty20

The emergence of spin as a match-turner in this IPL has surprised some of the best spinners in world cricket today but South African experts have seen it coming and say that spin will play a major role in Twenty20 cricket, and not just the Indian league.

Consider this: 30 wickets have fallen to spin in 10 games so far, with Anil Kumble, Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, and Daniel Vettori all turning in impressive performances. Even a part-timer like Kevin Pietersen has taken three wickets with his offspin.

Harbhajan Singh and Murali have already revised their opinion about the role of spinners in the IPL, and Mickey Arthur, the South Africa coach, says their success has only strengthened his belief that slow bowlers will be influential in Twenty20 cricket. It is a view shared by Pat Symcox, the former South Africa offspinner, who says the weather conditions this time of the year will assist spinners.

"I think spin plays a major role in Twenty20 cricket, and not just the IPL," Arthur told Cricinfo. "Looking at the World Twenty20 in June, we have already decided to cover all our options in pace and spin in our blueprint. It's obvious to us now that it's a good bowling unit that wins you a Twenty20 game, and not just the batsmen. You need to have a bowling unit that has the ability to take wickets and that is what will finally determine the result of a Twenty20 game."

Symcox says the pitch and weather conditions in South Africa will be a deciding factor in the tournament. "It's basically got to do with this time of the year in South Africa with the winter setting in," Symcox told Cricinfo. "The pitches start to wear a bit and the grass becomes a lot drier. There is much better grip for the spinners. Besides, there is always a little bit of extra bounce in South Africa, when compared to India where the IPL was held last year. Add that bounce to a little bit of turn and spinners become a very useful option."

Kumble has grabbed six wickets so far, followed by Vettori with five, Warne with four, and Murali and Ojha with three each. In fact, Kumble, who retired from international cricket last year, turned in the most economical five-wicket haul in Twenty20s against Rajasthan Royals last weekend, claiming incredible figures of 3.1-1-5-5. All these spinners have played crucial roles for their IPL teams, claiming the scalps of some of the best in the business like Pietersen, Matthew Hayden, MS Dhoni, Chris Gayle and Adam Gilchrist.

"We realised this during the recent one-day series here against Australia, and that's why we worked our bowling strategy around Paul Harris and Roelof van der Merwe (both left-arm spinners)," Arthur said. "The result was there for all to see." South Africa won the one-dayers 3-2 at home earlier this month.

Harbhajan, who turned Mumbai Indians' opening game against Chennai Super Kings with a spell of 3-0-15-1 including the key wicket of Hayden, says the role of spinners in Twenty20 has taken "a 360 degree turn". Harbhajan is sure that the spin will play a "pivotal role in this new 'avatar' of cricket". He points to Kumble's five-wicket spell on the opening day and writes in his blog: "The five-wicket haul, shelling out just five runs for exchange, is no joke in any format, forget about T20."

Murali, who watched Harbhajan bowl from the Chennai dugout, wrote in his blog that the Indian offspinner's spell "was the first sign that spin could be a factor in the tournament". "The fact that we are playing on tired squares at the end of the season may also be having an impact," Murali wrote. "Whatever the reason, as a spinner, I am obviously delighted."

Symcox says the trend is "fantastic" not just for this IPL but for the Twenty20 format. "Youngsters will now be encouraged to bowl the slower ones," he said. "They will realise that Twenty20 cricket is not just about running in hard. Now I feel sorry for the medium-pacer in Twenty20 cricket, guys who bowl around the 120-kmph mark. The faster guys always have a chance and now the spinners are also doing well, it's the medium-pacer who has to adapt now."

South Africa prepares for biggest test as IPL crosses continents

Just in case anyone doubted the effort that has gone into shifting the Indian Premier League from one continent to another, Lalit Modi, the league's chairman, commissioner and ubiquitous public face, spelled it out. "It's taken them eight years here to get ready for the 2010 soccer World Cup," he said. "We've had 29 days." When play gets under way at Newlands today with the first two games out of 59 spread across six weeks, it will be a triumph for ambition, drive and the non-stop rise of Twenty20 cricket.

If Modi is to be believed, the IPL is not merely a sporting phenomenon of a very modern kind, but a force for good in an insecure country whose new democracy is not even two decades old. After the Lahore terrorist attacks on Sri Lanka's cricketers in March persuaded the Indian government that hosting the world's best players at the same time as staging a drawn-out general election was a recipe for trouble, South Africa happily stepped into the breach. Soon, they will be old hands at this kind of thing.

Two years ago, the country hosted the inaugural World Twenty20. Next month comes the British and Irish Lions rugby team, and later this year cricket's Champions Trophy, another refugee from the perceived dangers of the subcontinent. Next year, it will be football's World Cup. So eager are South Africa to please that when Modi declared on Thursday that the IPL would boost the local economy by between 1.5 and 2 billion rand (up to £150m), few seemed inclined to question the sums.

No matter that the Newlands-based Cape Cobras stand to earn peanuts – one million rand (just under £75,000) – for staging eight matches at short notice at the end of a busy domestic season. To be seen to help is what counts. "If it all works out it will be a reminder of how good we are at staging international events," said Andre Odendaal, the Cobras chief executive.

But business ventures – and the IPL remains very much business before pleasure – have their own ruthlessness, and the reality on the ground in the week leading up to the cricket has not quite tallied with Modi's sunny assessment of "smooth sailing". Much has been made of the sellouts at Cape Town for the weekend's two double-headers, rather less of the Newlands suiteholders persuaded to sacrifice their private boxes to allow a comfier vantage point for the IPL's endless stream of grandees.

Suiteholders at the Wanderers in Johannesburg are said to have been less compliant, and there is an underlying resentment in some quarters at the IPL's apparent sense of entitlement. Modi's decision to introduce compulsory time-outs after 10 overs of each innings, a naked means of creating more airspace for TV commercials, has gone down badly with the host broadcaster Sony, who were already fuming after Modi doubled their TV rights fee following last year's successful launch in India.

It is a financial sleight of hand that this week allowed Modi to proclaim the IPL was "recession-proof". And, with the world's financial markets hanging on for dear life, he has also declared that all eight franchises will have made a profit by the end of the tournament. The plan is to roll out one or two more teams either next year or in 2011, although Modi does at least draw the line at franchises building their own stadiums. Sensibly, perhaps, he achieved a PR coup yesterday by visiting a school in Athlone, an underprivileged part of Cape Town, where – with Kevin Pietersen, Shane Warne, the Bollywood star Preity Zinta et al looking on – he handed over a cheque in front of screaming pupils for 100,000 rand.

In fact, the South African public may well be sufficiently interested to make the tournament work. An impromptu warm-up game last week between the Cape Cobras and the Rajasthan Royals, Shane Warne's reigning IPL champions, drew a crowd of over 8,000 and Modi has claimed ticket sales will weather the initial burst of curiosity. Sixteen games – more than anywhere – have been scheduled for Durban, home to 80% of South Africa's 1.5 million Indian population. The hope is that the underwhelming open-top bus parade through Cape Town on a drizzly Thursday is not some kind of omen.

All that is left is the actual cricket, easily forgotten amid the hype. A repeat of last year's opening-night 158 from Kolkata Knight Riders' Brendon McCullum would go down a treat, but near-autumnal South African pitches may not produce the totals of 180-plus that peppered the 2008 competition in India.

In theory, the sides with the most South Africans begin with an advantage. On that score, Bangalore Royal Challengers, dismal last year, look well-placed, with Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Dale Steyn, Roelof van der Merwe and Dillon du Preez all coached by another local, Ray Jennings.

Their captain is Pietersen, who knows the conditions here pretty well too. "It's worked out perfectly for us with Ray as coach as well," he said. "I'm like a kid out here surrounded by all these legends. I just hope the English guys learn a few tricks and take them back to the World Twenty20."

England's players missed out last year. Now they will get to see what all the fuss is about. If the IPL can work in another country, we may just have to start taking the breast-beating Modi at his word.

ICL launches Season III, seeks recognition

Mumbai: Just two days before the ICC executive board meets in Dubai to discuss Indian Cricket League's fate, chairman of the Essel Group that bankrolls ICL, Subhash Chandra, on Wednesday threatened to take legal action against the ICC if official recognition was not awarded to the T20 league.

The ICL is fighting a lone battle to get official status since its launch two years back after the International Cricket Council, on Indian Cricket Board's pressure, deemed the Twenty20 league as unofficial.

"ICL has emerged as a true global sports brand. We have successfully conducted seven tournaments through our pioneering league. Every edition has seen new innovations, additional sports facilities and a larger talent base to entertain the sports consumer," Chandra said.