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Two leggies having a ball

S. Dinakar

— Photo: S. Subramanium

Piyush Chawla.

Chennai: Two young leg-spinners have been buzzing in the Indian Premier League. Amit Mishra and Piyush Chawla have been on the ball.

Their successes are not without solid cricketing reasons. Shots against the spin — into the country — represent a greater risk for the right-handers. And the leggies can employ the googly while bowling at the southpaws. Crucially, they take the pace off the ball, force batsmen to use their feet.

Piyush has 11 wickets in nine matches for Kings XI Punjab and Mishra, seven in three for Delhi Daredevils.

Conventional leggie

The 25-year-old Mishra’s methods are different from that of Piyush. He imparts greater rip on his leg-spinners, is more of a conventional leggie. He flights his leg-spinners, while his wrong ‘un, a touch quicker through the air, fizzes off the surface.

Piyush is a leg-spinner in the mould of Pakistan’s Mushtaq Ahmed. He has a stinging wrong ‘un, both, flighted and flat, but does not turn his leg-spinners to a great extent.

He has been working on his leg-spinners, though, has been spinning the ball a touch more over the last year. This has enhanced the potency of his googly. A googly has to be a shock weapon than a stock ball.

It was due to excessive bowling in the ODIs that Mushtaq relied more on his googlies than his leg-spinners and carried that habit into Test cricket. An exceptional bowler otherwise, Mushtaq suffered because of a negative mind-set.

Happily, Mishra has been depending on his leg-spinners. He has been accurate, and has brought in subtle variations in trajectory and spin. He has set the batsmen up with the leg-spinner and consumed them with the googly.

Mishra’s confidence shines through in the manner he bowls at the death. He would have got four wickets in four deliveries in the dramatic last over against Deccan Chargers had not Dinesh Karthik muffed a leg-side stumping. His bowling has revolved on control and his economy rate of 5.70 in the IPL so far has been extremely creditable for a spinner in a format created for the big hitters.

The Haryana lad flirted briefly with the Indian team in 2002 and 2003 before drifting into oblivion. The leggie with 289 wickets in 75 first class games is in contention again.

Piyush has been more of a regular feature in the Indian team and did bowl beautifully in the ODI series in England last year when he, undaunted by the heavy hitters, flighted the ball. He has a useful top-spinner in his repertoire.

Handy batsmen

Both spinners are handy batsmen and are backed by two attacking captains, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag.

And they can seek inspiration from the legendary Shane Warne.

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