IPL 2018: Leg-spinner by chance, Mayank Markande proved he can well be Mumbai Indians' find of the season

Quite often a press conference gives scribes a fair idea of the tactics that the team is going to deploy in the upcoming match. As a result of that, players, more specifically captains, have become quite conscious of what they say. So ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) this season, when Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma was asked about the team’s spin woes and the extent of pressure that would there be on Krunal Pandya, he unintentionally revealed a thing or two about the team’s plans. “Yes, over the years, spinners play a crucial role for getting us where we want to get and given us crucial breakthroughs. But not just Krunal, there a few young guys who are looking promising. People have not seen them before. And from whatever I have seen from them in the last three-four days, you know, I am very impressed. I think we have got some real talent in the house and hopefully they can come out and just play cricket the way they have for their clubs or the teams that they have played for,” Rohit calmly said two days before their season opener against Chennai Super Kings. [caption id=“attachment_4422925” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] MI’s Mayank Markande celebrates the wicket of CSK’s Ambati Rayudu during the IPL 2018 opener in Mumbai. Sportzpics[/caption] Glance through the Mumbai Indians squad and you will realise that apart from Mayank Markande and perhaps Tajinder Singh, to a certain extent, there is not a single spinner in the side whom the opposition scouts, coaches and players would not have seen. The 18-year old Rahul Chahar had already made a mark in the previous edition of the IPL, while Anukul Roy was a part of India’s U-19 squad that won the World Cup earlier this year. The only overseas spinner in the Mumbai squad is Akila Dananjaya, and lest we forget, his exceptional six-wicket spell against India in August 2017 had triggered a plethora of analyses; right from his run-up to his wrist position and there remained no mystery surrounding the ‘mystery’ Sri Lankan spinner. When Mumbai Indians named Markande in the playing XI, it was a giveaway as to whom Rohit was talking about in the presser. The 20-year-old is an unknown commodity, having only featured in six Vijay Hazare and four Syed Mushtaq Ali fixtures for Punjab. His performance in the T20s was impressive but still the general notion was that Chahar was the frontrunner for the spinner’s spot in the team. It took Markande all but three balls to prove why he nudged the former down in the pecking order. It was a googly that befuddled Ambati Rayudu. It was so plumb that Kedar Jadhav didn’t recommend his partner to review it. If at all one thought reading the delivery was a misjudgement on Rayudu’s part, the very next over, Markande slipped yet another wrong’un to dismiss his “favourite player” MS Dhoni. Two perfectly bowled googlies had given Markande a dream debut and put his team in a strong position. According to The Cricket Prof, Markande bowled nine googlies and picked up three wickets off them for two runs. Such was his accuracy that the CSK batsmen managed to put some bat to the ball only four times. There is a reason why his googlies are slightly hard to read. “The thing about his googly is that it turns very fast. Normally, a googly turns slow. But his wrist is so strong that he imparts a lot of revolutions. He doesn’t flight the ball much and he is quite fast in the air. That is his biggest quality,” Munish Bali, who was the assistant coach of the Virat Kohli-led U-19 World Cup winning team in 2008 and has worked with Markande since he was 15, told Firstpost. His googlies might have forced the cricketing world to sit up and take notice of his sensational performance, but ironically, Markande began his career as a fast bowler. It wasn’t until the advice of his coach Mahesh Inder Singh Sodhi, the father of former India allrounder Reetinder Singh Sodhi, that he decided to turn into a leggie. One of the major reasons for that change was that he had “immense control over his slower back-of-the-hand delivery” and Sodhi felt he could exploit that skill while bowling googlies. That wasn’t the only reason though. “There is a tendency for each young player to become a batsman. Also, if a player is slightly tall, he is asked to become a fast bowler. And eventually, he becomes a medium pacer. So the exposure for batsmen and medium pacers is not much as there are a lot of them. But a wrist spinner more often than not gets noticed. So I asked him to become a leggie and told him, ‘T__u accha karne lag gaya toh rasta clear hi clear hai (If you do well, a lot of opportunities will start coming),’" Sodhi, who has been Markande’s coach for almost a decade, told Firstpost. The suggestion worked wonders for Makrande, who hardly showed any nervousness in the biggest match of his career. It was a night that he will hardly ever forget. “It was a tremendous experience. Never expected that I will play IPL (so soon). But this is just the start, I have to work very hard now. It was only this year that I played Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy; so didn’t think that I will play IPL. And even if I was bought by Mumbai Indians, I wasn’t thinking that I will get to play but instead I just wanted to absorb the experience and learn from it,” Markande revealed to Firstpost, after registering the second-best bowling figures on debut in the IPL (3/23) for Mumbai Indians after Lasith Malinga’s 3/15 against the same opposition in 2009. Markande was snapped up for Rs 20 lakh by the Mumbai franchise after impressing head coach Mahela Jayawardene, batting coach Robin Singh, team manager Rahul Sanghvi and another key member of the coaching staff, Kiran More in the pre-auction trial in January, to which almost 100 bowlers were called up for it. Markande was a part of the trial process in the previous year as well and one stand-out performance in this season’s CK Nayudu Trophy impelled the Mumbai management to take another trial. “Mumbai Indians called me for trials after my (CK Nayudu Trophy) quarter-final match against Karnataka. I took ten (nine) wickets in that fixture. Fortunately, all my trials went very well. But still, I didn’t think that I will get picked,” said Markande. Even 37 missed calls and 300 messages weren’t enough to convince the Punjab youngster that he was going to be a part of IPL-11. It was a call from Sanghvi that assured him that years of hard work was starting to pay dividends. “Even if I had performed well at the MI trials, I was preparing myself to work hard for another couple of years and do well in domestic cricket to boost my chances of getting picked. Playing in the IPL didn’t cross my mind,” remarked Markande. Thus began his preparations for the IPL. His usual practice routine was bowling in the morning and afternoon. But after being bought in the IPL, Sodhi asked him to bowl in the evening as well. But he refused and informed Sodhi that he is following a schedule, handed to him by the Mumbai Indians management. Not for the first time, Sodhi was left impressed by his ward’s discipline and dedication. “See, a lot of youngsters get chances but few manage to avail of them. Fortunately, he cashed in on the opportunity. And it is down to his confidence, control and his humble attitude. He has also started preparing himself for the yo-yo test,” revealed Sodhi. Primarily a bowler, Markande also takes his batting seriously and has in fact contributed with the willow for Punjab quite a few times in age group cricket. Bali, who was also the fielding coach of the India women’s team from 2012 to 2014 and has been involved with the National Cricket Academy (NCA) as a coach for more than 13 years, recalls one of Markande’s best knock, played under immense pressure. “In the 2016-17 season, Punjab were facing a must-win situation against Tamil Nadu in the U-19 Cooch Behar Trophy. But there was a lot of moisture in the pitch, which coupled with the magnitude of the match, put the players under pressure and they collapsed. 26/4 became 229/7 and out walked Mayank to accompany Shubman Gill. The team was in a precarious situation. What followed not only turned the match on its head but also handed Punjab an outright victory. Punjab declared on 536/9; Markande scored 138, Gill remained not out on 260.” Mumbai might have lost the match thanks to a heroic knock from Dwayne Bravo, but they have unearthed yet another talent thanks to their exceptional scouting. In 2013, it was Jasprit Bumrah who was Mumbai Indians’ find of the tournament, then Hardik Pandya impressed in 2015. Could it be Markande in 2018? His journey has indeed began on the right note. Though he still has a long way to go, he has effectively put the doubts surrounding Mumbai’s spin department to rest.