Digvesh Rathi was mighty effective against LHBs last season.
A notable feature of Digvesh Rathi’s performances last season was his ability to remain effective against LHBs. He took six wickets at 31 runs apiece and an economy rate of 7.86 against southpaws. Against RHBs, the spinner had eight wickets at an average of 30.37, conceding 8.58 runs per over.
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Digvesh Rathi has many variations – he bowled five different types of balls in IPL 2025. However, the biggest one that reaped him success was googly, which he bowled predictably almost every time against LHBs. Around 89.65% of his deliveries to left-hand batters were googlies, which went for 7.98 runs per over and fetched him five of his six wickets.
No other right-hand spinner bowled as many googlies to southpaws; Ravi Bishnoi stands second with 69.44%, followed by 67.39% of Wanindu Hasaranga. Only Varun Chakravarthy (7.77) had a better economy rate. Six such spinners bowled more than 30 googlies to RHBs, and only Rashid Khan (38.29%) induced more false shots than Digvesh (34.64%).
Notably, Digvesh Rathi bowled only 30.68% of googlies without taking any wickets against RHBs. His economy rate (8.94) on googlies was also high, and he produced only 16.98% false shots. He relied heavily on leg-spin, mixing it occasionally with carrom balls and quicker balls from the front of the hand.
Delhi Capitals (DC) will likely have three LHBs in the unit: Nitish Rana, Axar Patel, and David Miller. The former two are among the best spin players in the team, while the latter also has a productive record against leg spinners since last year. Miller must have also watched Digvesh Rathi’s variation from close quarters in LSG nets in 2025.
Additionally, spinners were largely ineffective in Lucknow last year. They collectively had the second-worst average (45.36) and fifth-worst economy rate (9.25) among all venues. Digvesh did reasonably well but still averaged 28.71 across seven matches.
So, while he is productive against LHBs and showed decent expertise on the flat Lucknow surface, the spinner will have his task cut out. For instance, Nitish Rana handled him really well in the Delhi Premier League (DPL), while Axar Patel hit him for three boundaries in 10 balls last season, but he lost his wicket once. David Miller has an average of 116 and a strike rate of 156.75 against leg spinners since 2025.
LSG don’t have any other specialist spinner after Ravi Bishnoi’s departure, with Shahbaz Ahmed expected to be the spin-bowling all-rounder. However, he’s a negative matchup against LHBs and might not be used much in the middle overs. Digvesh Rathi will be the lead bowler and have a big test straight away in a season where batters will be more prepared to handle him.
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