The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Rashid’s leg spin: India’s toughest challenge
ADIL RASHID has snapped up 116 T20I wickets since 2015, the most for an English bowler and the third-highest among all spinners. At this T20 World Cup, Rashid Khan (14) and Adam Zampa (13), the ‘wicket-taking’ leggies are ahead of Rashid (nine) but the 36-yearold signs up for the big moments, producing that game-changing wicket or sending back the key aggressor.
It may be the years in his profile or simply the fact that the Caribbean has always been a favoured hunting ground for him – 30 wickets at a 14.83 average and an exceptional 6.09 economy – his best T20I returns across any continent.
Magic in the air
Rashid invites the big hits, the slogsweeps from the Andre Russells and Glenn Maxwells, and yet holds them off with the direction of drift and turn as the ball pitches higher up on the full. The variations in the air make him a standout.
In England’s final Super 8 contest, he boldly tossed the ball up to Aaron Jones, the USA batter who had lit up the tournament with his slog-swept sixes, and beat his intended slog-sweep to bowl him with a ripper. Even as his high-arm action can offer a glimpse of the impending wrong’un, Rashid weaves so many unpredictable movements into one ball that the batter is caught between a probable leg-break, top-spinner or the incoming delivery.
The googly has bagged him five wickets four of them bowled. The leg-break has earned him four, with one bowled dismissal. The exceptions in both cases make for a better understanding of Rashid’s craft.
In England’s seven-run defeat to South Africa, Rashid controlled the middle overs with 1/20 in four overs, finishing as the most economical bowler in the game. Rashid’s solitary wicket was a dragged-on bowled dismissal of South Africa skipper Aiden Markram. He looped it up as much as possible, offering Markram the perception of nothing more than an inviting, overpitched delivery but the deft side-spin from outside the off-stump was past Markram’s reading. Virat Kohli would not have forgotten a pronounced version of the same delivery from 2018 in Leeds that pitched on leg and progressed to clatter the off-stump.
The impulsive slog-sweeper in Russell failed to muscle a ball past wide long-on as the massive inward spin off the googly cast his downfall.
In the 2022 T20 world cup. Rashid headlined the semifinal against India by strangling Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli before foxing the marauding Suryakumar Yadav with a dipping leg-break. He bagged two in the final against Pakistan, dismissing Mohammed Haris and constricting Babar Azam with a sharp-spinning googly that sprang from length to induce a caught-and-bowled opportunity.