How Imran Tahir, Amit Mishra became Delhi Daredevils’ headlining act
LEG-SPINNERS, like lead guitarists in a rock-band, are a quirky, singular lot. For, there is always a sense of mystique and glamour about them. On most days, they are the showstealers. Yet, they can so easily be the bumbling villains in the piece.
Now you could do without them, and still have a successful show. A band could always choose a more conservative setup, and focus on the basics — rhythm, melody and lyrics. Or in cricket, you wouldn’t blame a team for opting for a bunch of orthodox finger-spinners who can offer control and safety, especially in T20 cricket, which demands both.
But there’s an unmistakable aura about a lead guitarist shredding a hair-rising solo or a leggie delivering a tantalizing googly that cannot be replicated. Plus, it adds enormously to their watchability quotient.
Then there’s the risk of being tempted to have one too many in the mix. Iron Maiden were the only ones to take the gamble. They had three, and reached legend status by doing so, but that was because Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Janick Gers each brought their own magic. Just like Imran Tahir and Amit Mishra for DD.
Their team might not have yet taken the tournament by storm, winning only two out of five matches. The leggie duet, however, have kept the show going.
Misers and scalpers
Tahir is presently on top of the overall wicket-takers’ tally with 13 victims, while Mishra has been Delhi’s most economical bowler. Together they’ve snared 19 victims, averaged almost two dot-balls an over and left both batsmen and cynics in their wake over doubting the feasibility of having two leg-spinners in a T20 team.
It’s the variety that each brings to the table that makes them DD’s trump-cards. But it’s the manner in which they complement each other that hurts the opposition.
If anything, Mishra plays the sagely dispenser of orthodoxy to Tahir’s riffing maverick. And he does it to perfection. If Tahir gets his opponents in harm’s way with his mystique and a tilt-a-whirl bowling action, Mishra lulls them into unforced errors through his guile and deception.
“When it’s slow in the air, the batsman gets extra time to play. But when you bowl slow consistently, it’s the flat, fast one that confuses him. So I sneak it in when he least expects it,” Mishra says.
Ask Wriddhiman Saha. The Kings XI Punjab wicket-keeper had used his feet on two occasions to combat Mishra’s flight, and looked to have the upper-hand. Then came the leg-spinner’s riposte, a medium-paced full delivery, bowled with a seam-up action. The result: Saha’s stumps being knocked back. If Mishra was excited at the outcome, Tahir was elated.
“Amit has got so much skill through the air. We talk a lot with each other. Be it variations in spin or anything else. It’s easy for me when he is bowling at the other end,” the South African explains.
If Mishra floats in a majority of his deliveries, Tahir prefers to rip it. He also gets the ball to skid on a lot. And that ability has been a major source of success for him, and also sent him on numerous celebratory sprints into the outfield.
In the same match against Punjab, Glenn Maxwell had already hit him for two sixes in the over. Then came the deception, a wide leg-break that pitched short of length, dragging Maxwell away from his hitting zone, and then dipped to ensure that the right-hander sliced it up in the air.
“I am very different than other leg spinners. I believe the pace should be good, but in the air, not flatter. Which is kind of gives a little bit loop to the ball to spin. I think on flat decks this is a very good thing to do,” says Tahir.
Like Tahir, Mishra too believes that the best option even for leg-spinners when they see a batsman charging at them is to target the block-hole.
Owing to their difference in styles, it’s not surprising that the areas where they have been hit for boundaries (13 sixes and 12 fours in 37.1 overs) are different. Mishra has conceded more runs in the straight field and it’s more the square field where Tahir has been scored off with batsmen using his extra pace.
There is one similarity, however. That is in their chief weapon of choice — the googly. Three of Mishra’s four victims and five of Tahir’s 10 have been deceived by the oldest trick in the leggie’s book. And not always when the batsmen have tried to go after them with evil intentions.
Conventional or not, Mishra’s wicket-taking nous cannot be underestimated. He is after-all the only bowler in IPL history with three hat-tricks. And so far in IPL 8, he and his fellow ‘trooper’ have sent batsmen ‘running to the hills’, all the while shaking, rather than banging their heads.
