‘They see Moeen Ali bowling off-spin and Adil Rashid bowling leg-spin, and want to do it’ Premium

Adil Rashid discusses spin bowling, England's World Cup wins, and his admiration for Eoin Morgan in an exclusive interview.

Virat Kohli has an expressive face. Bewilderment is something you rarely find on that face while he bats. But in the third ODI at Leeds during India’s tour of England in 2018, Adil Rashid managed to evoke such a reaction with a ball that reminded many of Shane Warne’s ball of the century to Mike Gatting. Rashid’s leg-break drifted towards the master batter and turned sharply to disturb the off stump. It may not have been quite as spectacular as the late Aussie magician’s immortal ball, but it was against Kohli.

Last week, on the same ground, Leeds, his home ground, Rashid reached a significant milestone. He became the first England spinner to take 200 ODI wickets, during the second game of the five-match series against Australia. The 36-year-old spoke to The Hindu over the phone from Leeds. Excerpts:

We are seeing a lot of young spinners coming into the England team. Two of them, Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir, made their Test debut on the tour of India early this year, Rehan Ahmed made his in Pakistan before that.

I am happy to find so many of them coming through. And there are a few more apart from the ones you have mentioned. You know you have to find people to replace the other people — the batsmen, the seamers, the spinners. You have got to find the next.

So hopefully when my time is up or when I finish or whatever the circumstance is, the spinners are ready to jump in and do what I have done in the previous years. That’s the ultimate aim. And at this moment in time, there are a lot of spinners coming through — through Lions and the County system. So the future is looking bright for spin bowling.

Well, it wasn’t so when you took up leg-spin. What made you take it up when the style was not very fashionable in England?

My father got me into leg-spin from a young age, when I was six or seven. He just threw me the ball — this is how you bowl leg-spin. He told me about what he knew of cricket. He didn’t play professionally, but he just liked his cricket. And he taught me the basics of leg-spin.