Khan shows why spin can still be king
The editor of Cricket Statistician analyses recent events
As the Champions’ Trophy moves towards its conclusion – hopefully through the playing of cricket rather than the weather – something else is happening across the Atlantic Ocean.
West Indies, humiliatingly excluded from the main event, are playing at home against Afghanistan. West Indies won all three T20 matches, but it finished one-all in the ODI series.
In the T20s Rashid Khan, the Afghan leg-spinner, had an economy rate of 4.54 runs per over, the best on view.
Then in the first ODI he took 7-18, and in the second 3-26. At that point in his career he had 63 ODI wickets at an average of 14.74 and an overall economy rate of 3.97, with a strike rate of 22.2.
The average and the strike rate are the best on record.
He has just come off the back of a highly successful IPL where he was a surprise pick and an even more surprising star, with the sixth best bowling average and, among those who bowled a substantial number of overs, the fourth best economy rate. Rashid Khan is 18. In December he took 4-48 and 8-74 against England Lions. His only other first-class match so far was in the Intercontinental Cup against Ireland, when he took 5-99 and 3-44 as Ireland were beaten by an innings.
With rumours suggesting that Afghanistan will be elevated to full member status shortly, the coaches of everyone’s international side will be searching for videos of this newcomer.
In recent years the use of video to study a bowler’s method seems to have been partially responsible for the downfall of various spin bowlers – Sunil Narine or Ajantha Mendis, for example – though there are other factors.
And we need spin bowlers more than ever.
There have been long spells in this Champions’ Trophy where a succession of seamers unable to swing it or seam it on bland pitches have been treated with something like contempt by batsmen (see the remarkable number of huge stands in this tournament),
As some consolation we have Adil Rashid doing his best for an England side where spinners have to be twice as good as quick men (they left him out of the first game, England’s leading wicket taker in recent ODIs – that would not have happened to a seamer), and Imran Tahir doing it for South Africa.
But, as if to give me the lie, Mason Crane has been picked for the T20 squad against South Africa in the most unnecessary series of the summer. I would suspect he won’t actually get a game.