Rashid’s clever change of lines and the art of applying the brakes
KOLKATA: Rashid Khan spinning a web around batters doesn’t quite excite anymore. Whether it is his reputation preceding him or teams seeking to play him out without taking risk, it does feel the Afghanistan legspinner is having his way almost every time. Except that he too starts from scratch like everyone else. Every match, he pits his spin and drift against a constantly evolving T20 batting. That phenomenal economy of 6.74 is testament to skills honed to perfection, so much so that anything marginally different makes you sit up and take notice.
Like in the game against Sunrisers Hyderabad where Rashid was carted around for 45 runs, bulk of them coming off slog sweeps from left-handed opener Abhishek Sharma. Rashid hasn’t otherwise surprised.
Playing at a different venue for the first time in two months, Rashid took to Eden Gardens like Wankhede or Brabourne— drifting in, changing trajectories, making the ball zip away or hold its line.
He did not have the wickets to show but Rashid also didn’t concede a six or four in a match that saw 51 of them hit. When you tally that with Mohammed Shami or Yash Dayal who bowled 11 dots each compared to Rashid’s 10 but also shared 11 fours and two sixes, you realise what Rashid brings to the table so routinely.
A glance at his IPL career graph—economy hovering between 5.38 and 6.74 across six seasons, backed by an average that never crossed 23 and a strike rate bordering on 20 balls—reaffirms that astonishing level of consistency.
In Tuesday’s Qualifier 1 at the Eden Gardens, no batting pair was better qualified than Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson to challenge that supremacy. But Rashid quickly got to work. By cutting out flight, he forced the tall Buttler to go back and forth to play across since he wasn’t getting time to get under the ball. To Samson, Rashid kept pitching it on a good length. Then came the first wow moment—a good-length ball pitched on off and middle spun away sharply from Buttler as he shaped up to play a googly. This was Buttler, the highest scorer of this IPL who faces Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin in the Royals nets every day, looking clueless.
Perfecting the wrong ’un
Rashid wrong-footing batters with his deceptive lengths is not a new thing, but what doesn’t get highlighted enough is the time spent in perfecting a wrong ’un that comes out of the hand at the same speed as a legbreak.
Back-of-the-hand deliveries tend to come out slower but only Rashid’s genius and practice could make a fool out of Buttler. And then not conforming to the usual also makes Rashid dangerous, like bowling googlies to left-handers. The angle of delivery and the away spin allows more freedom to swing the bat but Rashid’s clever change of lines always adds an element of risk to it. Like how he set up Rajasthan Royals left-hander Devdutt Padikkal with two different googlies. The first landed outside off, allowing Padikkal to knock it to point. The next was fuller in length and on middle and off. Trying desperately to block it, Padikkal found the ball turn away and beat the outside edge.
When a bowler plays around with line and length so skilfully, it’s bound to leave the batters’ minds cluttered. Only three out of eight bowlers who bowled their full quota of overs on Tuesday went for less than 10 runs an over.
Rashid bowled four overs and conceded 15. Next best was Chahal, who conceded eight runs per over. The timing of it too was significant. By the time Rashid was done tormenting Buttler and Shimron Hetmyer, Royals had just four overs left to raise a defendable score. But for Rashid’s spell, one could say they nearly achieved that.
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