To understand the beauty of Adil Rashid’s craft, you should watch him from square-on. The flight path of his stock delivery, the legbreak, is high over the eyeline of the batter, who licks his lips and steps out. But the ball hangs in the air and suddenly dips because of the revs on it. The batter, intending to send the ball high into the stands, is instead sometimes stumped or caught off a leading edge.This happened twice in England’s most recent T20 World Cup match, against New Zealand in Colombo. In Rashid’s first over, right after the powerplay, opener Tim Seifert stood well inside his crease and hit a 53mph legbreak, pitched outside off, for a six over long-on. Rashid responded the next ball with a fuller but slower legbreak (44mph), tempting Seifert to attempt a similar stroke, but because it had a lot of revs on it, the ball dipped on the batter, who lost his balance and was effortlessly stumped by Jos Buttler.
Chapman, a left-hander, also threw his bat at a 45mph legbreak, which turned in to him, and Buttler, standing at an angle outside off, once again knocked the bails off. As he walked off, Chapman flung his bat in the air, shaking his head, berating himself for being fooled.
“We all know he [Rashid] bowls slow,” Seifert said about his dismissal,” but sometimes the [batter’s] eyes just light up a little bit too much and [we] try to step down and bang him. But look, he did me all up from a pace point of view. I saw a stat come up on the TV as well: he’s bowling the slowest out of any spinner in this tournament. To his credit, not many bowlers bowl slow these days. They kind of bowl fast and skiddy. So that’s his method of doing it. He’s amazing at it and that’s why he’s one of England’s all-time [greats]. He’s crafty.”
At 38, Rashid is a spinner whose craft was honed in an era when flight, drift, and putting your body behind the ball to get more spin were among the basics. In a recent interview about his bowling, Rashid said there were “more flickers” now, meaning more spinners who flick the ball instead of giving it a rip.
For 21-year-old England legspinner Rehan Ahmed, his senior team-mate’s bowling is “once-in-a-generation stuff”. “Most legspinners around the world in the last six-seven years have had success doing the opposite thing [to Rashid]: bowling quicker, stump to stump, but for him to do that [bowl slow] and be so brave and to get it right most of the time, it’s incredible,” Ahmed said.
“We joke about it in the nets – he gets everyone out with that slower one, with that quicker one. His variation makes it hard: if you just bowled [only] slow, then it would be quite easy, but because he can go from 40mph to 55mph, he becomes a very, very tough bowler.”
In this World Cup so far, Rashid’s median speed has been about 50mph versus other wristspinners for whom it has been 54mph, and fingerspinners, who are at 56.4mph approximately. While around 32% of wristspinners’ deliveries and 55% of fingerspinners’ deliveries have been bowled at 56mph or more, only 1% of Rashid’s deliveries have been over that speed.
Getting the ball to hang in the air and making it dip and then turn a fair degree are important elements of the legbreak, but the chief reason why Rashid succeeds so often with this delivery is because of the length he pitches on, in particular the fuller zone three to four metres from the crease.
In this World Cup, 22% of his deliveries have pitched on the 3-4m length, compared to 16% by other wristspinners and 10% by fingerspinners. Even in the 4-5 metre band, usually more used in Test matches, Rashid’s percentage, 34% in this World Cup, is higher than for other spinners.
It’s no wonder batters’ eyes light up when they see the ball about to land so close (3-4m), giving them the (usually) false hope that they can step out to clear the boundary. Pitching on this length has proved highly effective for Rashid in this World Cup: his economy when landing it there is 6.86 runs per over, versus 9.72 for other wristspinners and 8.95 for fingerspinners.
Even when it comes to the line of the ball, Rashid distinguishes himself from other spinners. His modus operandi, especially for legbreaks, is to pitch it in the channel outside off, like a fast bowler and not on the stump-to-stump line spinners usually prefer. While other spinners have pitched 31% of their deliveries in line with the stumps in this World Cup, Rashid has done so for only 23% of his.
The outside-off-stump line is also effective when he has to bowl with uneven boundary dimensions. At the Premadasa stadium, Seifert had the advantage of hitting towards a shorter leg-side boundary, so the challenge Rashid posed was to force him to fetch the ball from outside off on a pitch with significant turn.
Rashid’s numbers reveal how by varying his lengths, operating at significantly slower speeds than others, and sticking to the basics of old-school spin, he tempts the batter closer towards danger.
Allrounder Will Jacks, who has faced Rashid in training and in England domestic cricket, points out why it’s hard to charge him. “His skill is his great control of length even when bowling all his different variations, and that can make him very hard to step out to. As we saw today [against New Zealand], he had two stumpings. On a pitch like this, you need to be right to the pitch of the ball, and his ability to get the ball to drop just before it approaches you is because of how many revs he gets on that, and he’s a hard man to get down the pitch to.”
Rashid will be up against India in the World Cup semi-final on Thursday – a team who have a good record against him, and at a venue where his record is average. He has taken only five wickets in five T20Is at the Wankhede in Mumbai, at an economy rate of 9.62 and an average of 30.8. The last time he played against India here, early last year, Rashid finished with figures of 3-0-41-1 with Abhishek Sharma walloping him for 34 off 13 balls. But the last time Rashid played at the Wankhede, against West Indies earlier in this World Cup, he was the most economical bowler in the match with figures of 4-0-16-2.
While the semi-final pitch is likely to take slightly less turn, the bounce is expected to be good. One of the key contests could be Rashid against India’s left-hand batters; he ranks among the best against lefties in the last two years. Since January 2025, among bowlers who have taken at least ten wickets in all T20s, Rashid’s economy is the second-lowest, after Imran Tahir. In terms of average runs per wicket, Rashid’s 16.5 is second-best. In comparison, two of the best spinners in this period, Adam Zampa and Varun Chakravarthy, average 22.76 and 23.64 per wicket respectively.
Abhishek, Ishan Kishan, Tilak Verma, Shivam Dube and Axar Patel were all clearing the shorter boundaries at the Wankhede during training on Tuesday evening. Can Rashid be England’s weapon to stop these fearsome batters?
Jacks believes he can. “He’s a brilliant guy to face in the nets because once you have faced him, you can really go on and take anyone, and that gives us batters confidence. He’s our go-to guy. He’s Harry’s [Brook, England captain] go-to guy. He bowls tough overs. He’s often held back to bowl an over late in the innings and on pitches that offer [spin]. He’s tough to pick and he gives the ball a massive rip. Going into the semi-final, we know he’s the spearhead of our spin attack. He’s such an important player and, yeah, we’d love to win the World Cup for him.”
Nagraj Gollapudi is news editor at ESPNcricinfo
