If you look at the leading wicket-takers in every women’s T20 tournament for the last two years, one bowling type is represented more than any other.

In this year’s Hundred, two of the three joint-leading wicket-takers were left-arm spinners – Samantha Bates and Tilly Corteen-Coleman. This year's Women’s T20 World Cup saw Shree Charani take more wickets than anyone else, with Sophie Molineux in second place and Sophie Ecclestone just below her. In the 2026 WPL, it was Charani again who was joint-leading wicket-taker among spinners, while in the WPL Sophie Day and Linsey Smith were both in the top five. All of these bowlers are left-arm orthodox spinners.

International squads have also become more left-arm spin heavy over the last couple of years. England selected three left-arm spinners for their T20 World Cup squad, while they called-up all-rounder Charis Pavely for their ODI series against Ireland, who took 14 wickets in this year’s One Day Cup, bowling left-arm spin. As of September 15, 2026, three of the top five bowlers in the ICC T20I rankings, and six of the top 10, were left-arm spinners.

The proliferation of left-arm spinners in women’s cricket isn’t a brand new trend, but there has been a notable increase in both how many left-arm spinners are making it through to the top echelons of the game, and how many wickets they are taking since 2020. In the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup in Australia, less than 20 per cent of wickets were taken by left-arm orthodox bowlers. In the most recent edition in England, that figure was over a quarter.

The boom of left-arm spinners is also having an effect on other types of spin bowlers. The percentage of deliveries sent down by both legbreak and off-spin bowlers in the 2026 Women’s T20 World Cup was less than it was in 2020. Until Georgia Wareham displaced Sadia Iqbal in the ICC T20 bowling rankings last month, there wasn't a single wrist-spinner in the top 10.

There is then, evidence that there has been an expansion in left-arm spin’s dominance in women’s T20 cricket. However, the reasons for that are less clearly identifiable. While spin is used differently in women’s cricket to its role in the men’s game, there has not been a similar left-arm boom in men’s T20 cricket. Equally, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why left-arm orthodox bowlers have been so successful beyond simply its overrepresentation in the current bowling landscape.

Why is there more left-arm spin being bowled?

One theory to explain left-arm spinners’ increased representation is the expansion of the global player pool in women’s cricket as a whole. The expansion of professionalism across the women’s game means teams now have a wider group of players available to pick, rather than having to select from a narrow group with limited variation.

Whether it’s pace or spin, left-armers have always been overrepresented in cricket compared to the proportion of the population they make up, because they are traditionally more effective against right-handers than right-arm bowlers are. With a wider playing pool, coaches are now able to pick the types of bowlers they think most likely to win them games, resulting in more left-armers being selected.

This is supported by a greater percentage of left-arm pacers being selected in the 2026 T20 World Cup than the 2020 World Cup. However, the proportion of pacers who bowl with their left arm in women’s international cricket is still tiny compared to the number of left-handed spinners.

England spin coach, Tom Smith, a former county left-arm spinner, suggests a reason for this. “I think coaches are now encouraging people not to bowl medium pace, and go into spin bowling,” he tells Wisden.com. “Off the top of my head there’s not a huge amount bowling left-arm seam, whereas there’s a huge amount going into spin bowling.”

Given the increased role of spin in the women’s game where there is more scope for fielding multiple specialists in the same XI than there is in the men’s game, it’s plausible that pathway coaches encourage young players to bowl spin rather than pace. Equally, bowling fast brings greater risk of injury and takes a higher physical toll than bowling spin. Freya Kemp was kept out of bowling for more than two years with a stress fracture in her back. Mahika Gaur hasn’t played for England for two years, having suffered repetitive injuries.

While a preference for bowling spin could apply to both left and right arm bowlers, it would likely be more pronounced among left-armers. As left-handers make up around 11 per cent of the population, a greater proportion of those players opting to bowl spin over pace would result in a more noticeably smaller pool of left-arm quicks than if a similar proportion of right-armers chose to bowl spin. The end product is that the pool of left-arm pace bowlers is tiny, but there’s no notable change in the pool of right-arm quicks available for selection.

Tilly Corteen-Coleman started out in youth cricket as a pace bowler, but quickly transitioned to bowling left-arm spin. “I was a seamer to begin with,” she told podcast earlier this year. “And then I suddenly had a growth spurt. But for ages I was a shorty. I was always the smallest in the friendship group and I just could not get any pace so I was just bowling hand grenades. My U11 coach David Sears explained it to me as an off-cutter, and I started doing that, a couple turned and I was like, that’s it, I’ve decided I want to be a spin bowler.”

It’s not unusual for a young player to transition from pace to spin, but the rewards for doing so in women’s cricket are higher than in the men’s game. There are generally fewer specialist pace bowlers in women’s teams than men’s, meaning that physical demand has a lesser prospect of reward.

Another part of the left-arm spin boom can be explained through the variety of left-arm spinners currently on the international circuit, something that can be seen in how England head coach Charlotte Edwards explained picking three left-arm spinners in England’s T20 World Cup squad.

“Just because they’re three left-armers, if they’re your best spinners they should be picked,” Edwards told podcast in April. “They’re all very different left-arm spinners, so I don’t think you can compare.”

In Linsey Smith, Edwards selected a left-arm spinner who rarely gets the ball to turn, and operates more as a slow swing bowler, generating drift through the air, which was particularly effective on slow pitches in India and Sri Lanka in the 2025 50-over World Cup. That’s a huge contrast with how Sophie Ecclestone bowls, who releases the ball from a greater height, at a higher speed and attempts to generate more turn.

While Corteen-Coleman is more similar to Ecclestone in trajectory and method, that in itself is revealing of a pattern of world-class left-arm spinners inspiring others to take up the art.

“Growing up she was always my idol,” Corteen-Coleman says of Ecclestone. “It’s a bit embarrassing to say now I’m in the same team as her but she probably still is. I love watching her bowl, I love the way she navigates being on the pitch and the decisions she makes.”

🗣"Growing up she was always my idol"

18-year-old Tilly Corteen-Coleman on the fairytale moment of receiving her debut England cap from left-arm spinning hero Sophie Ecclestone 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

🤝 @KiaUK pic.twitter.com/4QClPD1nF6

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) May 21, 2026

“A young Tilly probably grew up watching Soph make her debut and play,” Smith says. “Young kids watching now, they’ve got amazing spin bowlers to aspire to. Even drilling down beyond the first team now, we’ve got Phoebe Brett in The Hundred and even in the U19s a couple of promising left-arm spinners.”

For young bowlers coming through now, who grew up watching the best bowlers in the world bowling left-arm spin, it tracks that there would be a generation of players wanting to bowl like their heroes who are now filtering through into professional cricket. There’s a parallel here between the Shane Warne effect of younger players wanting to bowl leg-spin.

The sheer number of left-arm spinners makes competition between them fierce, with each pushing the others to develop new skills and become more threatening. “At Trent Rockets, Sam Bates was actually running the ball on the inside of the bat, bowling arm balls,” says Smith. “So I think the bowlers are getting so highly skilled that they can attack on both edges now more so than they did five or 10 years ago.

“Even Sophie Ecclestone, you think about those arm balls, she got Hayley Matthews out with a beautiful arm-ball through the gate, and then she can also spin it past the outside of the bat. I guess that’s a challenge for our off-spinners. We haven’t seen that many of the Georgia Adams-type who run the ball underneath but can also swing the ball on the outside of the bat or into left-handers. But we’ve seen a lot more left-armers bowling those arm balls and spinning it past the outside edge.”

That offers another explanation for both the effectiveness and proliferation of left-arm spinners in women’s cricket over the last 10 years – match-ups. As previously stated, left-armers – slow or fast – have traditionally been thought to be more effective against right-handed batters. Left-armers turn the ball away from the right-hander, bringing the outside edge into play more than right-armers do. As an obvious point, there are more right-handed batters than left-handed, given that right-handers make-up roughly 88 per cent of the population, giving left-arm bowlers their increased role.

As the pool of women’s players has increased alongside the advancements in variations made by left-arm spinners, that traditional line of thought has been followed by selectors.

Nevertheless, more left-arm bowlers being included in teams, and the success of those bowlers, has led to a slight decrease in the number of balls being faced by right-handed batters. In the 2021 women’s Hundred, right-handers faced 88 per cent of balls bowled. In the latest edition, that figure was 81 per cent. A plausible explanation for this could be that right-handers are facing fewer balls because match-ups to left-arm bowlers are more frequent, and right-handers get out more to left-armers than right.

In fact, in this year’s Hundred, the type of bowler most likely to dismiss a right-handed batter was a right-arm finger spinner. On average, a right-handed batter was dismissed by an off-break bowler every 13 deliveries. For left-arm finger spinners, that figure is just over every 17 deliveries, and for left-arm pacers, every 25 deliveries.

Most likely types of bowlers to dismiss right-handers in the 2026 Women’s Hundred

Bowling type	Balls bowled
Right-arm pace	2309	132	17.6
Left-arm pace	245	10	24.9
Off-break	737	57	13.0
Leg-break	714	35	20.4
Left-arm orthodox	1055	61	17.3

As Smith explains, match-ups aren’t everything. “That would be a common thing with some coaches and analysts, that they want the ball turning away,” he says. “I’m the opposite of that, and believe that the ball hitting the stumps is the most important thing. It’s actually easier to hit the stumps more often with the ball turning in, so I put a high value on right-arm off-spin. I might be one of the minority saying that.”

Smith took up his post in April of this year. Mady Villiers was recalled for the Test against India, while both her and Charlie Dean have been picked for their ODI series against Ireland – making a rare England squad with two right-arm finger spinners. Dean, the second-highest ranked off spinner in the world on the ICC T20I rankings, bowls the majority of deliveries targeting the stumps to right-handers and takes a wicket every 14 balls when bowling on that line. Deepti Sharma, the highest-ranked and only other off-break bowler currently in the ICC’s top 10, is also at her most effective to right-handers when targeting the stumps.

In contrast, Sophie Ecclestone bowls the majority of her deliveries to right-handers in the channel, fitting in with the traditional approach of left-armers turning the ball away from right-handers. She takes a wicket every 23 deliveries with that line, but when she bowls at the stumps, she takes a wicket every 8.3 balls.

Overall, in the 2026 T20 World Cup, spinners using either arm took 82 wickets at an average of 14.3 across the tournament when targeting the stumps. When not hitting the stumps, that average jumped to 30.1, showing that line and accuracy trumps angle.

Thus, the traditional line of thought that left-armers are more effective to right-handers isn’t necessarily the truth in women’s cricket. It’s also relevant that this theory comes from men’s cricket, rather than a specific theory of how effective different match-ups are in women’s white-ball cricket. As more data becomes available for women’s cricket, the theories between the two games could diverge more.

What comes next?

An interesting parallel to the rise of left-arm spinners is the relative decline in leg break bowlers. In the 2026 Women’s Hundred, 821 balls were sent down by leg-spinners, 111 fewer than in the 2021 edition of the tournament. Trent Rockets, this year’s winners, only used 35 deliveries of leg-spin across their campaign, all bowled by Katie Levick. The three most expensive leg-spinners bought in The Hundred auction were Georgia Wareham, Amelia Kerr and Sarah Glenn. While the first two of those also offer value with the bat, none were among the top rank of strike-bowling spinners, in terms of balls per wicket.

The downward trend of leg-spinners is similar in international cricket. Glenn hasn’t been included in any of England’s squads this summer, having been a regular face since 2019. England haven’t included a frontline leg-spinner in a squad since last year. Wareham has been a constant feature for Australia, but her ability to bat in the top six of Australia’s T20I lineup gives them a luxury most sides cannot afford. While Wareham and Alana King featured in the same XI in several games in the 2026 T20 World Cup, for the most part King misses out when both Wareham and Molineux are able to play as all-rounders.

The decline in leg-spinners in women’s international cricket places it at odds with the men’s game, as does the explosion of left-arm orthodox bowlers. Leg-break bowlers boomed in men’s white-ball cricket in the mid 2010s alongside the growth of franchise leagues. The proportion of left-arm finger spinners on the men’s international circuit has largely stayed steady over the last decade.

While the reasons why women’s cricket hasn’t experienced a leg-break boom in a similar vein to the men’s game are not completely clear, especially given the increased role of spin in the women’s game, one theory is timing. Leg-spin boomed in men’s white-ball cricket in the mid 2010s as spin switched from a defensive to an attacking weapon. Leggies like Rashid Khan bowled the ball faster, and prioritised deception out of the hand, which gave them an increased role in the powerplay.

The biggest period of development for women’s cricket, however, has come in the last 5-8 years, after the peak of men’s leg-spin bowlers. “Because I've coached a lot in men's cricket,” says Smith. “You follow what's happening right now in the men's and generally it drips through [to the women’s]. What Liam Dawson and Mitchell Santner are doing now is taking a lot of pace out the ball in T20s. Historically in all T20 men's and women's, bowling it faster is more effective, whereas now bowling it slower [is more effective].”

That tracks with the expansion of slower balls bowled by spinners in the women’s Hundred. Equally, as Smith explains, the different post-powerplay restrictions in women’s T20s, where only four are allowed outside the circle compared to five in men’s cricket, have placed a higher value on accuracy, favouring finger spinners who turn the ball away from the right-hander rather than wrist-spinners.

“The women are at a disadvantage with only having four out,” says Smith. “With the power in the women's game now, you have to show what you're going to bowl. You're either going to have your cover fielder up and have your straight fielders and your leg side fielders and bowl straight, or if you're going to try and split the field, then it means you've got a gap behind you and one of the straight fielders has to come up. That’s a challenge that men have never had to worry about in T20 cricket.”

Taking this into account, it can be seen that women’s cricket skipped the leg-break boom that men’s cricket saw in the late 2010s, which occurred while the women’s game was still professionalising. The increased fielding restrictions in women’s T20s have placed a higher value on accuracy over mystery, further discouraging selection of leg spinners over finger spinners who take the ball away from the right-hander.

For leg spinners, there’s a higher bar placed on what they can offer sides to win selection, given that finger spinners are traditionally more accurate. But the right leggie is still a prized asset. “We’re trying to find a high-rev leg spinner,” says Smith of England’s future spin plans. “Sort of like Alana King. We’re looking to try and win the Ashes, whether it’s this time round or the next time, and you’re trying to find someone who can change games. “

And having previously mentioned the evolution of left-arm spin variations outstripping development in other types of bowlers, Smith sensed a shift during The Hundred.

“I’ve certainly seen Hayley Matthews moving the game forward with bouncers and taking the pace off, it looked like Ash Gardner had been working on bowling a lot slower, so I think everyone is upskilling at a rapid pace of knots just from watching TV, let alone what the England girls are trying to do. But I think there’s a lot more curiosity around: ‘How do I move my game forward?’ There’s a lot more visuals on the game and people can see how other bowlers are excelling, they then want to explore that.

“There was a real movement in The Hundred of Charlie Dean, Ash Gardner and Jess Jonassen all taking pace out of the ball. I think that’s where it’s going to go, where you’ll see spin bowlers being able to go up to 50mph, but then also bowling at 44mph, that’s really exciting.”

The left-arm spin boom in women’s cricket has come from a number of factors. The expansion in professionalism has left coaches with more variety to choose from, feeding into the preference for left-arm bowlers as a whole. Equally, the increased role of spin in women’s cricket has resulted in a higher preference for left-arm spinners relative to the men’s game, fuelled by the domination of several exceptional left-arm spinners in the women’s game.

However, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the domination of left-arm spin in women’s cricket has reached its peak.The concentration of the international and franchise bowling market with left-arm spinners has little room left to increase while still ensuring there’s enough variety to select from. As more data becomes available in the women’s game, selections should trend towards those backed up by stats over traditional ideas of match-ups.

While left-arm orthodox bowlers are currently a highly prized asset, and will likely continue to be, as other demographics catch up, different types of bowlers will likely be the ones pushing through the next bowling revolution. Until the rest catch up, however, left-arm spinners will continue to dominate tournament wicket charts.

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