Here is a thoughtful question from Dave,

"Several of the articles here talk about using the spinner as an attacking option in order to take wickets and win the game, but with win/lose cricket you don't have to take all ten wickets to win. Is there going to become more emphasis on defensive bowling, and will this make the life of the slow bowler even more difficult?"

We do discuss the role of the spinner as an attacking option a lot, mainly because it is more interesting a challenge to bowl a side out than it is to simply restrict the rate with defensive bowling.

However, as Dave rightly points out, the role of the spinner does change when you remove the draw from your matches and go to straight limited over format. Most notably the tweakers are used in the middle overs rather than the end, and try to keep the rate down; taking wickets by strangulation.

This means that, yes, defensive bowling is the norm for spinners in win/lose formats.

You can still take wickets because wickets are the best way to slow the run rate. However, with the batsmen forced to try and go for the total there is no need to winkle out a tail-ender set on defence. He or she is far more likely to hole out on the boundary than be caught at slip to a defensive nudge.

So in many ways, life as a spinner is easier. You know you need to bowl at the stumps with accuracy and you know the batter is going for it.

Of course, it's no fun getting hit for successive boundaries, but at least you don't have to deal with subtleties.

You can still use your range as a bowler; variations, dip, turn and bounce all help to stop the aggressive batsman getting set.

So although your role has changed - and just like any other time you need to be sure of your role whatever it is - you still have an interesting challenge that will take you years to master.

Spinners are safer in the game than ever. More power to them.