It was the best carrom ball at the T20 world cup so far. Maheesh Theekshana’s reverse-carrom, the incoming killer, and he enjoyed so much that he would celebrate it like an archer releasing a Brahmastra.
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Sports is all about evolution. Once the batsmen started to pick the finger-flicking release, the carrom balls was under threat of losing its venom. The carrom-merchants weren’t just going to idly sit watching its demise, though. They came up with the reverse carrom, the one that comes in to the right hander. Now, the batsmen can’t just spot the release and shape to play it to the off side; unless closely scrutinised, this weapon can now startle them by darting both ways. R Ashwin talks about it as how this particular ball helped him amp up his white-ball game.
On Saturday, in the game between Sri Lanka and New Zealand, Maheesh Theekshana came close to perfection with that ball. He undercuts it a touch, the thumb backspinning along the seam, propelling the ball into its magical trajectory. It first swerved away a little bit, before the backspin starts registering its effects on the ball. It starts to shape in, and then dart in sharp like a seamer’s nipbacker. It’s not clear if Allen read it or not, as his chief error was anyways the wrong length for the cut shot he picked. Once he backed away to a relatively fuller ball, he was always going to be in trouble land. And the deed was done when the ball began its inward journey. Now he had no where to escape. Bowled!
Ashwin began toying with this ball in 2019 because he felt the batsmen were picking his finger-flicking carrom balls. “Usually seeing the way it comes out of my hand the (right-handed) batsman started to set up to play it to the off side. But now I have tried to get the ball to drift into the batsmen,” he had once told Sky Sports.
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It’s only apt that Theekshana is using it as it’s befitting for someone from the Ajantha Mendis land. Another Sri Lankan spinner, Suchitra Senanayake, would deploy it to great effect.
With his crooked action, which eventually got him banned from bowling, the swerve in the air was more pronounced.
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Contrary to the regular away-going carrom ball, this is flicked underneath, imparting backspin. The same mechanics that swing bowlers use.
“It goes underneath. It’s more of a backflipper that gives me drift away from the left-hander and into the right-hander,” Ashwin explained. “I also go under the seam for it to straighten at times.”
Ashwin has said that it took him a year to tame it. Depending on the seam position, he obtains a different degree of inward movement. At times, it’s towards legslip, and sometimes he scrambles the seam more when he wants the ball to skid on quicker. And as he says, he deliberately tries to straighten it at times.
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Pakistan’s left-arm spinner Imaad Wasim, who just the other day said he is waiting for his chance to get back into Pakistan team, has a deadly in-swinger to the right-hand batsmen but that’s delivered with the fore-finger on the seam, and the back-spin kicking in.
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Wasim often uses it in the Powerplay overs. Wasim’s swing kicks in appreciatively with that wide left-armer’s angle and since it’s propelled with decent pace too, not many batsmen have attacked it. Ashwin tries that ball too but it seems inherently a better ball when it comes from the left-armer. Daniel Vettori used that to great effect. Ashwin compensates it with his reverse carrom ball, which is probably one of the reasons for his comeback into the Indian team. No better exhibition than the one showcased by Theekshana.
