EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Ish Sodhi - New Zealand's pathbreaker

by Shirshendu Roy • Last updated on

"Dipak Patel asked one day, "Does anyone bowl spin?" and I said I'll try. I bowled a ball and that spun quite a bit, and I thought this is quite cool," Sodhi said. © Getty

It's the hashtag generation and almost everything is being judged based on how it is trending. Not that legspin had gone extinct from the cricket map but all of a sudden, there seems to be an outburst of the trade in the present day. South Africa have an Imran Tahir, Pakistan have a Yasir Shah, India seem to be investing heavily in Yuzvendra Chahal, Australia have Adam Zampa and a country like New Zealand which seemingly has never had an eye for legspinners, are egging Ish Sodhi on. The Ludhiana-born 24-year-old admittedly says that he achieved his dream of playing international cricket at least six years ahead of his own goal. While Sodhi is thrilled to have already played a 'decent amount of internationals', he feels the current trend of the era has made possible his dream.

"I suppose the conditions in New Zealand do not promote leg spin or bowling spin in general as much as they do in other countries. But in this era, leg spin is being seen as a vital cog in limited-overs cricket, that's where this dream has been a bit more of a possibility in terms of moving forward," Sodhi tells Cricbuzz.

Sodhi was discovered during the 2012 Under-19 World Cup held in Australia. With seven wickets to his name and a miserly economy of 3.98, he shot to prominence in his country's domestic arena. Two months later, he made his first-class debut and in less than a year from there, he had been awarded with his first Test cap too. But ask Sodhi about how legspin happened to him in a country where he had grown up seeing none, he has a rather interesting narration. During one of his first academy sessions with former New Zealand offspinner Dipak Patel, where he had registered as a seam bowler who could bat at the top of the order, he happened to venture into trying spin when Patel enquired with the batch of boys if anybody could bowl some of it.

"Dipak Patel asked one day, "Does anyone bowl spin?" and I said I'll try. I bowled a ball and that spun quite a bit, and I thought this is quite cool. I want to continue doing this," Sodhi remembers with a glint in his eyes. But from merely turning a few balls to harnessing his skills in the trade was the single-most arduous task he set out to master.

Go back in time and track down New Zealand's history of legspin and you won't need more than a hand to keep count of them on your fingers. Alex Moir and Jack Alabaster, both played for Otago through the 1950s before representing New Zealand in a few Tests. Then there was Greg Loveridge and Tim Anderson before Brooke Walker broke through from Auckland's cricket scenes to play five Tests in the early 90s. But that was all of it. Understandably, there was no breeding ground for such an art either and much of it was left to self-learning.

"I wanted to continue doing this. Then I started researching on this, I went on Youtube and looked for legspinners. Anil Kumble was the first to stand out for me, I think the first video I watched was of him getting ten wickets against Pakistan. There's something really special about that video for me, that's where it started."

"From there I just wanted to improve my skill of legspin bowling and it became a bit of an obsession, one that I haven't still gotten rid of and I hope I don't give it up for a long time to come," Sodhi reminisces.

On the couple of days of no-cricket when the officials and groundstaff strived their hardest to get the first one-dayer started, Sodhi indulged himself in a long chat at the pitchside with Karn Sharma, India A's prime legspinner who had picked up 16 wickets during the two four-day games. Both practitioners of the same trade were seen exchanging ideas on the off-day, gesturing hands towards different field combinations, presumably talking about their bowling alignment, loading and landing areas too. Some time later, Shahbaz Nadeem joined in the chat and it all made for a nice, learning environment. No rivalries, just learning, and that is something that Sodhi talks highly about, having travelled a fair amount of miles playing different opponents.

"Because there are not so many legspinners available as coaches in New Zealand, we do struggle with the resources and training at the grassroots level to a certain degree. I suppose a lot of times the coaches would tell you that you are your own best coach, and I suppose along with the obsession of legspin bowling, studying of it through the videos and understanding it was critical. The more I have played, the more I have been exposed to legspinners around the world, I guess it is mixing a lot of information to get to making your own mind, grow in terms of legspin bowling," Sodhi reveals.

Through his developing years, Sodhi realised that the wickets in New Zealand weren't going to assist him much and it was more about developing the skills by bowling as much as he could in practice and elsewhere. "I suppose when you haven't played a lot of legspin at the time, when you see it for the first time, you feel there's some sort of a mystery attached and I banked on it when I started playing domestic cricket. And as I have grown up, I realised wickets in New Zealand are not conducive to spin, so it's a lot more bowling and lot more developing skill. Can't be legspin-wrong un, legspin-wrong un."

Sodhi came to India with the New Zealand A team, and with a five-fer in the second four-day fixture he strengthened his chances of being part of the senior side on their India tour. Todd Astle's injury made him a late inclusion in the ODI squad [but didn't play a single game] while he was also selected for the T20Is, that begin on November 1.

"Consistency is something I feel I have to work on, especially if I am trying to play Test cricket. If I warn myself too much about getting selected for the series, I probably won't get the best out of myself in training to improve, I would rather continue to train my mind in a bid to improve, so that I give my best when I get a chance to play," Sodhi adds.

"I think Mitchell and me are two very different bowlers, two people with different mindsets, two different arms [laughs], and I think we can definitely complement each other through that middle period. It is about me finding a way to push my way through selection, get there and find a role. Mitchell is a very intelligent bowler through the middle and late periods of the game, so it's a work-on."

Sodhi admits that he spent a lot of time working on his action during the past twelve months and through the process, realised that it was more about shifting his mindset to start feeling like the wicket-taking, attacking option.

"I always saw myself as a wicket-taking option but given the conditions in New Zealand, being an attacking legspinner was a slightly different dynamic than being one in India. I found the biggest difference was with my line where I always was looking to bowl for the first slip. On a wicket that didn't too much, it wasn't as achievable as LBW or caught at mid-wicket.

"I had to slightly shift my mindset in the longer game to be able to complement my wicket-taking abilities, and in turn I became a defensive bowler. When the wickets were flat, I thought that was my best way of attack but at the time when I was being seen as a defensive bowler, I was getting the same amount of wickets as when I thought I was an attacking bowler. It is always about shifting that mindset and about how you are going to do that on the day as an attacking bowler."

The New Zealander is excited with the direction in which the world of cricket is headed at the moment, and he feels while not much has changed about his trade, it is perhaps the best time to be a legspinner. "Legspin hasn't probably changed so much in terms of skillset, probably it has in the way your are perceived and used by captains, coaches and selectors. They have really started to use as an aggressive option in white-ball cricket which let's say ten years ago, would not see often.

"Finger spinners will tie up an end but because the legspinners now are getting so much more confidence from coaches and selectors, they are starting to become very accurate, they are starting to see what the benefits are when the batsmen are trying to hit them out of the park, how important revs on the ball really are. When legspinners bowl, they end up more often getting that ball to go straight up than finger spinners. Lot of 'X' factor involved."

While Sodhi is enticed by the whole new prospect of legspin, he reminds himself of the difficulties he had to go through while growing up the ranks through different levels of cricket without adequate mentorship. You ask him if he realises that he could be the one mentor that a whole new generation of legspinners could look up to, he is more inspired than pressurised. Sodhi is aware of the impact his success could have on kids growing up with the aspirations of becoming a legspinner.

"Can't really remember a time in my lifetime where there are three genuine legspinners playing domestic cricket in New Zealand. I think when I was 12 years old, it would have been really great to see a legspin bowler playing for New Zealand day in day out and seeing that as something achievable for me at that time. I think I had to do a lot of that myself with the lack of resource, I found it very difficult to deal with that as a kid.

"And so if I can build that kind of legacy, however much that can be, I am hoping that for the next 12-year-old legspinner who is extremely talented but doesn't have the resources to improve his skills on the exterior front, I can be there at the grassroots for him."

Sodhi, surely, is setting his sights on the far end of the horizon but with his feet firmly grounded at the grassroots, he wishes to give more than he ever got. He is as much a pathbreaker as a legbreak bowler.

© Cricbuzz

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