The last flicker of India’s slow-burning chase was extinguished on the first ball of the 19th over. Hardik Pandya, raging against the tide of defeat, flat-batted Jamie Overton to long-off. The batsman swiped the air in anger, as he couldn’t get underneath the ball as much as he wanted to; Jos Buttler, the catcher and England captain, flung the ball into the air in delight. The 26-runs victory ensured that his team would stay alive in the five-game series that India leads 2-1.
The hosts would consider it an aberration — they have looked invincible since early 2023, having claimed seven of their last eight series and drawn the other, apart from being world champions. Such days — when India restricted England to 171, even though they let them off the hook from 127 for eight, but couldn’t gather enough impetus to hunt down the target — are bound to occur in a series. For England, their first win after Brendon McCullum took the white-ball keys, this would be a sign of an upturn in fortunes.
The neutrals, though, would purr over two contrastingly exciting leg-spinners. The new-age one in Varun Chakravarthy, whose five-for went futile, and the anachronism that is Adil Rashid, whose one-wicket burst proved more decisive to the game’s outcome. Both have ample tricks up their sleeve, have common threads too, but use their gifts in distinct ways to achieve the same end of picking wickets and winning matches.
Varun has every pyrotechnic in his repertoire, even though he relies more on over-spun wrong-uns with snappy drift and dip, shrewd change of pace (from 90 kph to 112), sliders, and seam-up straighteners (that foxed Jos Buttler and precipitated a collapse, from 83 for 1 to 127 for 7) these days. He doesn’t deal in mystery balls, but the mystery-halo shimmers around his crew-cut head.
Rashid doesn’t exude wonderment. A man of mild manners, stifled celebrations, with no tattoos blaring from his sleeves, he operates in incognito mode. His presence is so inconspicuous — no tantrums or strut — that he is noticed when he breaks into a stroll disguised as his four-step run-up. But he is arguably the finest white-ball spinner his country ever owned. More remarkably, he is one of the handful who possess the leg-break.
Most leg-spinners in the T20-multiverse trade in wrong’uns and sliders. So much so that the away-spinner is a rare change-up even for left-arm spinners, whose currency is the armer. The Indian leg-spin duo of Ravi Bishnoi and Varun is a classic example of leg-spinners, by natural instinct, breaking the ball into the right-handed batsman. Rashid, however, is a throwback. Not that he is averse to wrong’uns or sliders — he judiciously unlocks his variations — but in his pliant wrists, the leg-break has rediscovered itself in this format.
He uncorked a pearler to eject Tilak Varma, unconquered in his last four outings. The ball, generously imparted with revolutions, drifted away from the left-hander. The scrambled seam, and the pace (82.7 kph), misinformed Varma that the ball would slide away. He plunged on to his backfoot, shaping to slap the ball in front of square. But after landing, the ball took a drunken reroute. It barked back and slipped through Varma’s late retaliatory measures to disarray his stumps.
Varma wore a petrified look, as it required a near-unplayable ball to break his run meditation. The ball had gripped and turned more than any other on the day (5.7 degrees). The pitch was not a turner either, more sluggish and low in nature.
Turning point
The wicket, with the score on 68 for 4, filled England with hope. Soon, it transformed into belief when India stumbled to 123 for 6, and 131 for 7 when Pandya departed. But Tilak’s wicket was the game’s mood-drifter.
If Tilak, India’s most prolific T20 batsman in recent times, could not fathom Rashid, what of the rest? The leggie ended the night with barely believable figures of 4-0-15-1. No fours or sixes, 10 dot balls, numerous edges and near stump-shaves, his efforts not only gave England a toe-hold into the game, but also illustrated that there is space for leg-breaking leg-spinners in this format. This was not a one-off — India’s high-flying batsmen have managed only 56 runs in his 10 overs this series.
What has shone in Rashid is his supreme faith and devotion to his craft. Like many who were born in the Test-ODI era and had to tweak their tunes to suit the T20 milieu, Rashid was prone to over-using the wrong’uns in the mid-life of his career. But a frank conversation with captain Eoin Morgan before the 2019 World Cup, a surgery on his aching shoulder, and wisdom that came with age brought peace and clarity.
The most obvious change, though, has been in Rashid’s length. Of late, he has been bowling shorter than ever before. Like Sunil Narine and Rashid Khan, he is pounding the back-of-length, a markedly shorter length than the norm in Test matches, more often. The method dilutes a spinner’s traditional gifts in the longer format, prodigious turn, in favour of control. But Rashid gets the ball to turn when he wants to.
“As you play more and get more experience, you start developing certain things. I think one of my strengths is being able to mix it up and react to the pitch,” he explained the essence of his bowling. Simple words from a simple cricketer.
The leg-spinners’ battle would resume on Friday and would probably define the series.
Brief scores: England 171/9 in 20 overs (Ben Duckett 51, Liam Livingstone 43; Varun Chakravarthy 5/24) beat India 145/9 in 20 overs (Hardik Pandya 40; Jamie Overton 3/24, Brydon Carse 2/28, Jofra Archer 2/33, Adil Rashid 1/15) by 26 runs
Adil Rashid and Varun Chakravarthy in action in the India vs England 3rd T20I match in Rajkot. (AP) 
Share
