Gujarat Titans' Rashid Khan celebrates the wicket of Delhi Capitals batsman Sameer Rizvi during the IPL match between Delhi Capitals and Gujarat Titans at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Wednesday. (EXPRESS PHOTO BY PRAVEEN KHANNA)
The world around Rashid Khan froze for a split second. The masterful leg-spinner stood in wonderment. The batsman KL Rahul remained in his follow through, eyes petrified, like he was woken up from a nightmare, sweating and struggling to recount the terror it induced.Rashid had produced an un-Rashid delivery. The leg-break that landed on leg-stump and spun across the face of the bat, missed the bat and the stumps. A rare moment of extravagance from the leg-spin minimalist. If you watch alone, from the point it has left his hands, you would not believe its author was Rashid. In the refugee camps of Peshawar, he grew up idolising Shahid Afridi and Anil Kumble. This was from the album of Kumble’s great leg-spin contemporary, Shane Warne. The drift, drop, snap, turn, the fear and disbelief, the theatre. Everything was Warne-like. Only that it did not get a wicket. It yanked past his out-side edge. Rahul, an efficient player of spin, nipped the danger just at the timeliest second to not commit to the ball.
A fluke or coincidence? The ball gripping off a rough part of the deck? Or hitting a non-existent pebble or crack? But Rashid showed he could turn the ball, again. In the opposite route too, The ball that made his night.
It was the first ball Delhi Capitals’ man-in-form Sameer Rizvi faced from the Gujarat Titans tweaker. It was fairly tossed up. Rizvi, from watching the release, presumed it was a wrong’un. It certainly was. But the ball hung inordinately in the air. Men in form want to feel the ball and he pushed at its line, or the path he thought it would trace. This one didn’t. It floated on the sixth-stump line, swirled in and landed on fifth-stump or thereabouts, snuck through his generous gate and hit his off-pole. Snap, bite, turn. Warne. The magic was not in revolutions he had imparted, which he always does, but in the hang-time he gave the ball. With such fast arm-speed batsmen don’t expect ripping turn.
Delhi Capitals batsman Sameer Rizvi gets outfoxed by Gujarat Titans’ Rashid Khan during an IPL match at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Wednesday. (EXPRESS PHOTO BY PRAVEEN KHANNA)
The wicket brought him joy. “I think that it was after a long time, I got such a wicket,” he said with glee during the presentation. “As a leg-spinner you want that kind of a delivery, where you beat the batter,” he said. It was his moment of spark that could ignite his season, re-instil the joy of bowling, and the pleasure of watching him bowl.
After the 2023 World Cup, Rashid realised that his own ambition has pushed his body to extremes. It was no machine. “I could barely walk.” The doctors had advised him to undergo a surgery on his back earlier that year, but he kept on deferring it.
The most prized T20 jewel, he had commitments to keep. both for his country and the numerous franchises he turns up for. “Before the 2023 IPL, the doctor told me to undergo surgery. But I thought, teek hain I can play the IPL I went to the doctor again, and he said I need to do the surgery. I told him I wanna play in this World Cup. Doesn’t matter how it is, but I will think about it after. I pushed myself a lot in that World Cup,” he recounted.
The surgery went on without ado, but he did not feel quite the same. Perhaps, he rushed back to competitive cricket. Numbers plummeted. In the 2024 and 2025 IPL editions, he nabbed only 19 wickets from 27 games. In 2023 alone, he snaffled 27 scalps. Last season, he leaked 9.40 runs an over, as opposed to 7.08 in his overall career.
When the season episode ended, he knew something was amiss. Something needed to be worked on. He thought deeply and questioned himself. “Like, okay, what’s wrong now? Where am I, what’s the thing I’m missing? And I feel like it was the whole rhythm from starting to the finishing. What was not allowing me to be the bowler I was?”
He found the answers. “I still had a bit of pain in my back. And I was scared of, like, what’s gonna happen if I push it again?” He was bowling slower, rather he couldn’t modulate the pace as efficiently as he often does, and realised that his body had gone out of shape,” he revealed.
Foremost, he took a break. “I gave myself a couple of months after the last IPL and focused on my fitness. That’s something which I can improve and that does allow my body to bowl with the full rhythm,” he said. He focused on improving his core strength. “I tried my best to make it as strong as possible,” he said.
The 2026 version is fitter, leaner and better. He has rediscovered his rhythm and bite. The run-up has hit the perfect note—neither too fast nor slow. The action has more energy, the shoulders are free and strong. He is cracking jokes. Before the press conference started, he made a self-deprecatory joke: “All-rounder I guess. Bhool gaya shayad. Haven’t hit a six in the IPL.” Perhaps, the sixes too would come. On Wednesday night against DC, he illustrated a piece of deception that could make him deadlier. The gift of turn.
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