The Afghanistan leggie, still one of the most difficult bowlers to face in T20, demonstrates his grips for his various deliveries
Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi28-Oct-20214:50
Rashid Khan demonstrates his bowling grips
Shane Warne said he had one grip for all his variations; Rashid Khan has five. Rashid does not use all the grips equally, and some are rarely brought out in match play, but when he does employ them, he bases his decision on which one to use on the pitch. “If batsmen are trying to bring different shots in the game, why not a bowler bringing different balls in the game?” Rashid said in an interview before the T20 World Cup.In his main grip, for the legbreak, the tips of the index and middle fingers are at about 10 and 2 o’clock on the horizontal seam, perpendicular to it and gripping it, and the ring finger sits at around 8 o’clock.One of his variations involves holding the ball between thumb, index and middle fingers. The top half of the index finger runs along the seam, above it, with a little space between it and the seam. The middle finger mirrors on the other side, with the thumb providing support at the base, on the index-finger side. Occasionally the ring finger sticks next to the middle finger for support.Related
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Another grip involves the same three fingers, in more or less the same configuration as in the second grip, but with the top half of the index finger on the horizontal seam this time; the middle finger replicates the position on the other side, but with a little space between it and the seam. The thumb gives support at the base again.A fourth is where Rashid grips the ball with the sides of the index and middle fingers on the seam, in line with it. The ball is held between the two fingers, which scissor it in place. Using this grip, Rashid says, he has seen the ball bounce and turn unpredictably.Yet another grip he uses is similar to the traditional scrambled-seam grip used by fast bowlers, with the plane of the seam at approximately right angles to the direction of the ball. A variation of this that he uses is the classical seam bowler’s grip, where the tops of index and middle fingers are either side of the vertical seam, which is oriented in the direction of the batter, and the thumb on the seam below. Though it looks like a fast bowler’s grip, the release is a legspinner’s, from out of the wrist. Rashid says this delivery is a work in progress.The last grip, also still experimental, is a variation on his traditional legbreak grip – the first one mentioned in this article. The index and middle fingers are closer together, at about 11 and 1 o’clock, their top halves perpendicular to the horizontal seam and overlapping it, with the ring finger similarly placed, at around 7 o’clock. “It’s pretty hard to hold the ball in the fingers [like that],” Rashid says of this variation, which, when it works, produces a ball that skids in to the batter, somewhat like the traditional leggie’s flipper, he says.
