March 29, 2024

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Legspinner Stealing the Show in Indian Premier League

Legspinner Stealing the Show in Indian Premier League

By: Sandipan Bose

Amit Mishra

Delhi Daredevils’ decision to pick an additional leg-spinner in Imran Tahir, along with Amit Mishra, against the Mumbai Indians raised a few eyebrows in the beginning.

And, that too at the cost of dropping West Indies’ Carlos Brathwaite, who single-handedly changed the final match of the World T20 against England! This took everyone by surprise.

But at the end, the Daredevil move turned out to be a masterstroke, as Delhi choked Mumbai by 10 runs at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Saturday.

Just when Mumbai were on the verge of walking away with the match during their run-chase, the two Daredevils leg-spinners, literally, stole the show.

Mishra, who was the pick among the Delhi bowlers, got two wickets and gave away only 24 runs while Tahir conceded 29 runs from his quote of four overs.

Therefore, it was quite clear that good leg-spinners will always have an edge over the opposition. Who would know this better than Rahul Dravid, the mentor of the Daredevils?

He has seen the magic of Anil Kumble, one of the most successful leg-spinners of his time, rattling the best opponents. Surprisingly, the Indian team has been missing this trick for quite sometime now.

In the 2015 World Cup, the Indian selectors didn’t pick a leg-spinner for the quadrilateral event. Even during the World T20 at home, India picked two regular off-spinners in Ravichandran Ashwin and Harbhajan Singh despite having part-timers in the team.

Even when there were two left-arm spinners, namely Ravindra Jadeja and Yuvraj Singh, yet there was no place for a leg-spinner. The fact that a leg-spinner adds variety to the bowling attack doesn’t seem to convince the Indian selectors.

On a slow and often flat Indian deck, if ‘desi’ bowlers have struggled, it is only due to the lack of variety and no other factor. It’s only a leg-spinner who can fulfill this gap. It’s also time to change the way the Indian team thinks.

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