The legspinner doesn’t turn the ball too much, but by bowling full and out of the reach of batsmen looking for quick runs, he has been able to get the better of them
Sidharth Monga27-Oct-2017It is Chennai, a 21-over chase, the Australian top order is gone, and Glenn Maxwell has nothing to lose. India have their two wristspinners on, and Maxwell starts unleashing his sweeps. Like Hardik Pandya did to Adam Zampa earlier in the day, Maxwell hits Kuldeep Yadav for three consecutive sixes. There are long conferences. India should have this game in the bag, but there are squeaky bums around. Three sixes can do that to you. What if he keeps coming off for another three-four overs? It is a short chase after all.On comes the other leggie. Yuzvendra Chahal does less with the ball in the air and off the pitch than Kuldeep. Yet you don’t see him chatting that much with seniors between deliveries, even when Maxwell hits the fifth ball of this over for his fourth six in two overs. Chahal has hardened himself up bowling containing legspin in IPL matches in Bengaluru, where anyway beating batsmen in the air doesn’t amount for much because mis-hits sail for sixes.Now Chahal does what only he has done to Maxwell this innings: bowl full and wide. Maxwell has to drag it for his big hit, and Chahal has him caught at long-on. He holds his arms aloft, and then points one finger to his forehead.”Whenever I bowled to Gayle [in the RCB nets] I would bowl well wide outside off, and work out that if he isn’t able to hit me then I can try this against Warner and the likes,” Chahal told ESPNcricinfo last year.
In an earlier era, you might have dismissed this as Chahal’s luck. It is not. Denying boundaries in shorter formats is a bona fide way of taking wickets
It is Pune, and India have shackled New Zealand this time, but out comes Colin de Grandhomme batting like a dream, chipping straight balls over straight midwicket ala Mark Waugh and Carl Hooper. De Grandhomme hits Chahal for a four and a six before he comes back for another spell in the 44th over. And again, Chahal bowls that wide ball – this time on a length, the widest bowled to de Grandhomme all innings. He tries the big straight hit, and the edge carries to short third man.Chahal has tried the full and wide variety to big hitters in the lower order with success. James Faulkner once offered a return catch that Chahal failed to grab. Matthew Wade was stumped. He nearly had Tom Latham caught behind in Pune when again he tested the batsman’s reach. Against his 26 wide balls pitched on a length or fuller, New Zealand have not been able to hit a single boundary. Faulkner managed a six, but that was the only boundary Australia hit when Chahal practiced this line. On an average he slips in one full and wide ball every over.In an earlier era, you might have dismissed this as Chahal’s luck. It is not. Denying boundaries in shorter formats is a bona fide way of taking wickets. As a skill too, bowling out of the reach of the batsman but within legal limits is not to be scoffed at. For starters it is an extremely difficult delivery to execute, as commentator and former India spinner Murali Kartik remarked when Chahal got de Grandhomme’s wicket. You have to control the turn. Indian pitches are changing – which is not a bad thing in ODIs because they are preventing scores of 350 from becoming routine – so you have to bowl a length that doesn’t give the ball enough time to turn away and go past the wide lines.Then you have to choose wisely when and to whom to bowl this delivery. Chahal has kept the full and wide ones for big hitters who are not in a mood to be watchful: Maxwell, Faulkner, Marcus Stoinis, de Grandhomme in the 44th over. In that whole innings off 39 off 18 in Chennai, Maxwell faced only three wide balls, all from Chahal and none scored off. It also takes shedding of the ego to not mind being a legspinner whose signature delivery is the one bowled full and wide, not turning too much, not necessarily aimed at taking wickets.Defensive bowlers are getting due recognition with the abundance of limited-overs cricket. Analysts are looking at how well a player comes back when under pressure, when the batsmen have little to lose and the freedom to swing for the hills. Of all the spinners who have bowled in this limited-overs season in India, Chahal and Mitchell Santner have shown they find answers the quickest.Perhaps that is why Chahal has been preferred to Kuldeep when there is room for only one wristspinner in the Indian XI. Kuldeep has made all the highlight reels, practicing the rare art of left-arm leg spin well enough to pick up an ODI hat-trick, but Chahal has shown that when the pressure is high, on a flat pitch, a simple wide ball can be more valuable. Not to invoke his well-documented prowess at chess, it’s the hitters’ move now.