New Delhi: The Namibia T20 World Cup game was seen as a dress rehearsal for Sunday’s high-profile clash against Pakistan, and the unfancied African side seemed to make a friendly gesture by opting to bowl first at the Ferozeshah Kotla on Thursday.
Here was a perfect opportunity for Indian batters to free their arms and shake off the blues from the opening game win over USA on a tricky Wankhede Stadium pitch.
The home team got to an impressive total of 209 alright, but were left to plan much about dealing with unorthodox spin, especially with Pakistan’s Usman Tariq, the man who applies the brake on delivery stride and holds on forever before delivering. Add the traditional slowness of Colombo’s R Premadasa Stadium pitch, and that could be a handful for India’s big-hitters. And he is the least known of Pakistan’s spin challenge.
But India may not have expected to be tested by Namibia skipper Gerhard Erasmus, who pulled off a barely believable spell of 4-0-20-4. The Delhi pitch didn’t have great pace, but it was the bagful of tricks the 30-year-old off-spinner brought that caught out the batters.
The strongly built allrounder came on in the eighth over with India having raced past 100 in 6.5 overs. Erasmus applied the brakes, conceding one run and taking the wicket of Ishan Kishan (61), who could not clear the man on the midwicket fence, in his first over.
The Namibia skipper released the ball early and bowled round arm, at times going very low to make it tough for the batter to get underneath and launch.
Umpire Rod Tucker twice stopped Erasmus on his short track in his first over, signalling ‘dead ball’ as he was unhappy he was ‘prematurely’ delivering. A few quiet words later and all was fine. One such quick and early release accounted for Tilak Varma, caught on the long-off boundary, and Hardik Pandya could not clear the square leg fence. Axar Patel was helpless as Erasmus’ extreme underarm delivery rattled the stumps.
T20 batting may be in-your-face, but mystery bowlers have held their own in the format. If Erasmus reminded one of Kedar Jadhav’s round arm deliveries, the success of Varun Chakravarthy for India and Trinidadian Sunil Narine — both for Kolkata Knight Riders season after IPL season — shows how tough it is for batters to pick even if plenty of video analysis is available.
India haven’t faced Tariq yet, who took three wickets in the win over USA this week. He made an impact in his first game – he didn’t play against Netherlands and had figured in just three T20Is coming into the World Cup. Tariq’s action has led to plenty of memes on social media. But the spell against the USA saw former India spin great R Ashwin respond to doubts over whether the action, and the pause while delivering, was not legal.
Pointing out that any legality can only be tested at an ICC bowling action testing centre, he added on X: “Secondly, there is a 15 degree rule under which a bowler needs to keep his elbow and straighten it and to judge if a bowler is bowling within that 15 degree mark by the on field Umpire is impossible.
The only solution to that is having a real time in competition testing too. The above is a grey area and to accuse someone for utilizing the grey area is wrong. Finally, if the pause at the crease is legal or not, and that’s where I believe that it is entirely legal because that is his regular action.”
India have two days to find a way to deal with Tariq’s unorthodoxy. Batters will hardly have time to get their shots away against him.
One of the best mystery spinners India faced was Sri Lanka’s Ajantha Mendis, who flummoxed them at the 2008 Asia Cup with the carrom ball, googly, off-spin and other variations. In that Asia Cup final, he took six wickets to hand Sri Lanka victory. It took India a while and even then they owed it to Virender Sehwag’s counter-attack.
Erasmus had on match eve complained that his team didn’t get to train under the lights. ICC did clarify that they did not object when the training schedule was initially sent to them. But he will be really pleased to sparkle under the Arun Jaitley Stadium floodlights on a cool Delhi evening.
