Leie's turn after the wait

The modern cricketer has the technological benefits of being broadcast in High Definition, being officiated by the DRS system, and in legspinner Eddie Leie's case, being coached on YouTube.

"I'm serious. I learnt my googly through watching clips of Danish Kaneria bowling and my flipper from a combination of Shane Warne, Anil Kumble and Kaneria," Leie, the new face in South Africa's T20 squad for the upcoming tour to Bangladesh, says. "I would watch the videos a few times to see how they did it and go to the nets and try to do the same thing. That was how I learnt."

It's not that Leie didn't have coaches, it's that he had the time.

He made his first-class debut in 2005, played his second game two years later and his third three years after that in 2010. Before that, he had been part of age-group provincial sides in Potchefstroom in the North West Province, where he schooled. In between, he completed his degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, played for their cricket club, trained in their nets, and only after that did he properly break into the Gauteng provincial side.

"The Gauteng side always had good spinners. When I first started they had Ahmed Nawab and then Dale Deeb. I always knew that as a spinner, I would have to wait," Leie said. "It's like in soccer when you have a goalkeeper and he does well, you don't just change him."

Incidentally, Leie was also a goalkeeper so he understood the queuing system well and he needed to. Even after a breakthrough 2012-13 season for Gauteng, in which he took 56 first-class wickets at 22.85, he could not crack the franchise team, Lions. Imran Tahir and Aaron Phangiso were ahead of him and Leie's only chances came when both were on international duty.

Instead of wishing them away, Leie chose to learn from them - so much so that former convener of selectors Andrew Hudson, whose panel picked him for the T20 squad, said Leie was "a lot like Imran". Both are legspinners which makes both naturally attacking, and Hudson is hopeful Leie will continue to model his game on Tahir, who has also become a successful in holding up an end - Tahir's ODI economy rate is 4.35, even lower than Phangiso's 4.55.

Leie has learnt from both, particularly Phangiso, about not leaking runs. "Phangi played a big role in the evolution of my one-day career. He helped me with which lines and lengths to bowl," he says. "South African pitches are not that conducive to spin bowling, so you have to innovate. At the Wanderers you get some bounce and if there is grass the ball will turn a bit, but a lot of the time it's about being crafty."

Mastering that craftiness takes more than mimicking a YouTube video; it also needs nurturing from an expert, and Leie got that from Lions' coach. Geoffrey Toyana has overseen the rise of Quinton de Kock, Chris Morris, Temba Bavuma and Phangiso, and his success rate as a coach comes down to his people skills.

"Geoff has made a big difference to all of us because of the way he backs us and lets us be ourselves," Leie explains. "And he is selfless - if we want to stay after training to do more, he stays with us. Sometimes, after nets, I go to do some work in the middle and then Geoff comes with me. I am a hard worker, I want to give 120%, so it's nice to have a coach who does the same."

All that effort has finally resulted in the recognition every player dreams of: an international call-up. With the World T20 just nine months away, it would seem Leie is being lined up for bigger things even though he does not want to think that far ahead, or even as far as whether he will get a game in Bangladesh.

"Whether I play or don't play, the call-up is enough. This will do my confidence a world of good," Leie says. "Imran must be the guy who goes to the World T20. There is a queue and I am willing to wait."

In the meanwhile, Leie has a few other things going on. Even before going to Bangladesh, he has an overseas assignment. He will play for the St Lucia Zouks in the Caribbean Premier League after being handpicked by Darren Sammy, who got Leie to put his name in the player draft after playing against him in South Africa's T20 competition earlier this year. Even though Leie was on the losing side, Sammy was impressed with his returns of 2 for 17.

"I bumped into him at Nandos after the game and he came to me and said that I had bowled well and I should consider playing in the CPL," Leie says. "So I did." Leie did not play for Lions in the Champions League T20, neither has he played in the IPL, so the CPL will be his first experience of the glitzy, glamorous side of cricket.

He expects the Bangladesh tour, which will be sandwiched between his two stints in St Lucia, to be demanding work. "Playing Bangladesh in Bangladesh is not going to be easy. They are going to give it everything and we've seen how well they've been doing recently - at the World Cup and against Pakistan."

Leie has already started strategising about how he will approach the opposition if given the chance. "Cricket is my life so you have to think about these things, and I can tell you Shakib Al Hasan is the man I would target," he says.

So has he watched any YouTube clips of Shakib batting to try and spot a weakness? You can probably guess the answer to that.