Why Mishra may be the trump card Dhoni, India is looking for

In school, almost everyone starts out as an allrounder. You try out various batting positions before settling for one and also give bowling a go – fast bowling with a long run-up, medium pace, off-spin and leg-spin. It is a cycle all budding cricketers go through. The St. Xaviers High School (Fort) in Mumbai, my school (Sunil Gavaskar’s alma mater too) –  was a football school as we call it – and cricket was played on matting wickets. The fast bowler’s delivery would gather pace off the wicket – shoot through at times. The off-spinner would get some purchase too. But if you could land a leg-spinner in the right spot, it would rip past the batsman with bite and turn. It really was a joy. I tried leg-spin too and was slowly working my way towards getting more consistent. But then I gravitated towards football. Cricket took a back seat but still there were always the inter-class and inter-house matches to play. But the lack of practice meant that leg-spin was an art beyond me – full tosses, too much flight and long hops were all that I seemed able to churn out. Soon, I took to off-spin – it was much more stable and perhaps easier to land the ball in a good area. Simply put, off-spin is less mysterious; less extreme. Cut to the present – Amit Mishra against the West Indies in the second match of the World T20 tournament. The little leggie from Haryana is in full flow – the slider, the googly, the leg-spinner… he was flighting the ball, varying his pace and angles of delivery, inviting batsman to go for the big shot. It was mesmerizing; it brought back a dream. [caption id=“attachment_1447299” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Mishra has been in fine form in recent times. AP[/caption] It was widely expected that Twenty20 would kill leg-spin. It remains a difficult skill to master and even when you do master it – you can still have bad days. Some days, no matter what you do, it just doesn’t come out right. And on those days – leg-spinners disappear into the stands with a scary regularity. Remember what happened to Imran Tahir during the Adelaide Test in 2012 (0-260). But Mishra has shown over the years that being hit does not scare him. He has the second most wickets, 95, in IPL history – roughly 30 more than Ashwin and only Lasith Malinga with 103 wickets has more. His economy rate of 6.93 also shows that he not only gets wickets but has also evolved into a bowler who knows how to keep batsmen in check. A leg-spinner these days is like a secret weapon everyone knows about – but even then the batsmen seem clueless when they face up to him. A lot of that might have to do with the dearth we have in leg-spinning stocks around the world – it basically means that the technique to read and play leg-spin has deteriorated quite radically. You just can’t study videos to prepare for quality leg-spin and that is what Mishra is churning out. The West Indies batsmen were unable to read his googlies and that was what gave him match figures of 4-0-18-2. Couple those figures with his performance in the first match and India might just have found a trump card. It also adds a nice touch of mystery. The 31-year-old has spent a lot of time warming the bench for India. He was part of the squad for the ODIs in SA, he was also on the plane to NZ where he once again did precious little. His last ODI before the recent Asia Cup was played in 2013 against Australia but that was a solitary match. Before that it was only matches against Zimbabwe. His last Test for India came way back in 2011 – but that was perhaps fair because he then seemed to be too slow in the air to have an impact. After a good start, his average ballooned to 43.30 and the batsmen were picking his variations. And he has only ever played three T20 internationals. But the time out of the team seems to have helped him discover more variations. “I’ve done a lot of hard work in the nets for my variations and I’m happy they are coming out well,” Mishra said after the match. His slider adds some much needed heft to his bowling which could seem one-dimensional at times. The variations of pace are intriguing and Dhoni is backing him with aggressive fields and so far, it all seems to be working. It also helps that in the T20 format, you have to make decisions on the run. Batsmen don’t have the time to sit back and take their time against Mishra. The frenetic pace of the format works for him. When I first met Mishra in 2003 , he was just starting out on his journey as a leg-spinner – he dreamed of becoming the next Shane Warne. On being asked why he chose to become a leg-spinner, he replied: “Leg spin is not an easy art to master and not many opt to become leg-spinners. That is why I decided to become one.” It is a decision that is paying dividends now – for him and for India.