former team india cricketer Piyush Chawla rates some of the all-time best Indian Premier League (IPL) batsmen in terms of their ability to face spinners. In a quick chat with ESPNcricinfo, Chawla surprisingly picked former Team India opener and currently national team head coach Gautam Gambhir as the best batsman against the spinners.
Chawla’s prediction comes amid the ongoing 2026 season of the league. Prominent batsmen like Andre Russell, Suryakumar Yadav, Virat Kohli, David Warner, MS Dhoni, AB de Villiers, Jos Buttler, Glenn Maxwell, Shaun Marsh, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, Chris Gayle, Gambhir and Shikhar Dhawan were present in the brief conversation.
Rating of batsmen vs spinners according to Piyush Chawla:
Andre Russell against spinners: 6/10
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Suryakumar Yadav: 9/10
Virat Kohli: 9/10
David Warner: 9/10
MS Dhoni: 7/10
AB de Villiers: 7/10
Jos Buttler: 7/10
Glenn Maxwell: 6/10
Shaun Marsh: 9/10
Kiorn Pollard: 5/10
Hardik Pandya: 9/10
Rohit Sharma: 9/10
Chris Gayle: 9/10
Gautam Gambhir: 10/10
Shikhar Dhawan: 9/10
According to Chawla, Gautam Gambhir was the best batsman of his time who batted accurately against spinners. Among other Indian batsmen, the former spinner rated Shikhar, Rohit, Hardik, Virat and Suryakumar 9 out of 10. However, Chawla gave only 7 marks out of 10 to former Indian captain MS Dhoni.
According to Piyush Chawla, Gautam Gambhir is the best player of legspin. pic.twitter.com/9jEK4U7FIb
– ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) 2 April 2026
Gautam Gambhir’s record against spinners
According to the statistics, Gautam faced 2,363 balls from the spinners and scored 1,321 runs at an average of 52.8 in the Test. The left-handed batsman was out 25 times in 60 innings.
In T20, he played for Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). From 2008 to 2018, Gautam Gambhir played 1,183 balls against spinners in this particular format, scoring 1,534 runs at an average of 38.4 and a strike rate of 129.7.
If we talk about One Day International format, the batsman’s batting average against spinners was 53.4. The former opening batsman scored 1,601 runs facing 1,793 balls against spin bowlers.
In the longer formats, Gambhir’s overall batting average was over 50, which is certainly quite good, and also supports Piyush Chawla’s rating.
Pollard’s batting stats vs spinners
In the rating list, former West Indies all-rounder and Mumbai Indians franchise veteran Kieron Pollard got only 5 points ahead of the former Indian spinner. Chawla believes that Pollard’s batting against the spinners was not good.
Pollard was a successful player in the T20 format as he played for many teams and franchises across the world. But his batting statistics against spinners look slightly different from Gautam Gambhir’s T20 statistics against spinners.
Pollard played 2,548 spin balls and scored 3,767 runs at a strike rate of 147.8. In the shortest format of the game, former Caribbean batsmen had a batting average of 37.7 against spinners.
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