India, Feb. 6 -- When T20 cricket started breaking free from the grip of one-day cricket, spin bowling was suddenly looking out of place. In what was to be a three-hour movie version of 50-over cricket, where would spin ideally operate?

The format was loud, brash and unapologetically leaning towards pace and power. And so like in one-dayers, spinners were immediately delegated to the middle overs to prevent them from being targeted in the first six overs when the field was up. No one made any bones about making spin a defensive tool.

It made sense at first, with the Powerplay orthodoxy of T20 cricket demanding movement and bounce from the fast bowlers before spinners could take control of the run rate with a spread out field with more c...