Mark Nicholas: 'Mushy' the season's top turn (Sep 2 1996)

02 Sept

'Mushy' the season's top turn

By Mark Nicholas

ON Saturday we said goodbye, though not for long thankfully, to Mushtaq Ahmed, the wee leg spinner whose variation and enthusiasm have lit the second half of the summer. During the nailbiter yesterday evening, the injured Mushtaq watched from the dressing room and rejoiced in his team`s triumph. There was a danger Pakistan would go quietly after defeat at Old Trafford and Edgbaston but in the end the grand applause that reflects their skill and their committed play throughout this tour echoed around Trent Bridge.

England proved themselves every bit as effective a batting unit as Pakistan over the short distance and probably their equals over the long distance too. It was just that the English batsmen were confronted by the most devastating and most watchable bowling of all. Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, devastaters both, have provided compelling cricket in their new-ball battles with Michael Atherton and Alec Stewart and are proven clearers of the tail and yet neither is so central to the success of their team as "Mushy", the wizard with the whirling arms, whom Akram has crowned greater than Shane Warne and who will, glory be if you hail from Taunton, be back next April to play his fourth season for Somerset.

Mushtaq loves playing in England, the changing conditions and varied pitches, and acknowledges how much county cricket has helped his game. His ambition is to take 100 wickets for Somerset, eclipsing the 95 he managed last summer and the 85 he took three years back. He has every chance for he bowls loads of overs, wheeling away while the seamers rotate and at once providing stock defence and incisive attack.

Being a big wrist spinner of the ball, the softer surfaces of England do not bother him. Finger spinners rely more on bounce so that edges carry but wrist spin has more options since the greater action on the ball drags response from the sleepiest of pitches.

It was long thought that hard, bouncy surfaces gave the greatest encouragement to wrist spin but Warne would not choose to bowl in Perth, perhaps the hardest pitch in the world, with anything like the glee he would choose to bowl in Sydney. Mushtaq is happy enough with Perth but happier still at the Oval, and Sydney for that matter, where there is some bounce and where there is an abrasive, rather than a smooth surface on which the ball can grip.

He regards his performance last Monday at the Oval, when he bowled 30 unchanged overs from the Vauxhall end to take six for 67 - winning the Test and securing the series - as his finest hour, though only by a short head from the final afternoon at Lord`s where he took five for 11 in an extraordinary spell of 57 balls between lunch and tea.

"Atherton is the key wicket, and to an extent Stewart. They have played very well against the new ball so are settled when I come on. I don`t think Alec reads me and I am not certain that Athers does all of the time but they watch the ball well off the pitch which is the next best thing.

"England have a strong batting order, particularly now Crawley and Knight are at five and six, but it is so much more difficult for new batsmen to cope with the spinning ball and fielders around the bat. I got Atherton both times after I switched to bowl around the wicket and soon after the collapse came," he said with a sparkling smile.

Amazing to tell that Pakistan omitted their leg spinner from the first Test in Brisbane last winter and that he responded by taking 19 Australian wickets in the next two, in Hobart and Sydney.

TO outwit Atherton, Mushtaq had to bowl long spells using patience as an ally he had not previously known. His much-publicised conversations with Warne have been less about spin than about the mental side of their art.

Mushtaq was as impressed by Warne`s unforgiving accuracy as by his special gifts and Warne convinced him of the need to restrict batsmen and to prey on their frustration. Previously Mushtaq had beseeched a wicket from every ball but Warne assured him that, being capable of magic, time would do its stuff, so better not to let the fish from the hook.

The magic that Warne referred to is surely now reaching its peak. Amazing to tell that Pakistan omitted their leg spinner from the first Test in Brisbane last winter and that he responded by taking 19 Australian wickets in the next two, in Hobart and Sydney.

Days after Sydney, Pakistan went to New Zealand and the matchwinning Mushtaq took 10 wickets in Christchurch which confirmed his team`s rediscovered confidence. In the three matches this summer he has taken 17 wickets, which means that in these last six Tests, all away from home, Mushtaq has taken an incredible 46 wickets.

He first arrived to haunt England during Mike Gatting`s infamous tour 1987-88. He was 17 years old then and though he took six wickets against them he was rather less lippy, so England barely noticed him. They ought to have done because like so many young Pakistan cricketers of the time he had been transfixed by the sideways shuffle, the hop, the skip and the jump of Abdul Qadir and had imitated his hero in the back streets and the barren parks of his home town, Sahiwal, where he first experimented with wrist and flight. He was nine when he started and was surprised that more experienced school friends had trouble laying a bat on his looping tweakers.

There has been trouble for his opponents ever since - he was the thorn that punctured England`s side in the World Cup final in Melbourne in 1992 - who have judged his googly the most dangerous weapon. But no more. "I had back trouble," he says, "and had to lean sideways to handle the pain. Imran suggested that weight training would help strengthen the back and it helped so much that my old more upright action is back and because of it my leg spinner has returned."

Bad news for batsmen because those two deliveries, harnessed to a spitting top-spinner, make for a threatening box of tricks. He doesn`t bother much with the flipper, thinks it damages the ring finger on his right hand and is convinced that this most elusive, most brilliant of deliveries is to blame for Warne`s hand injury.

He is aware that those opponents are seeing a great deal of him and their belief that they are understanding his craft simply inspires him to further exploration. "I`ve got two googlies now and an alternative top spinner that sometimes bounces even more than I expect it to. I don`t want to stand still giving people a chance to work me out, I want to move on, which is why I switch my line so often and have started to bowl more around the wicket and into the rough. I know I am less likely to get lbws from that angle but it is the uncertain bounce that creates doubt in the batsman`s mind."

He has always had trouble with lbws - "some umpires haven`t a clue what I`m up to" - and he is frustrated that he so rarely receives a decision when the batsman is on the front foot. "Sometimes I tell the umpire the straight one is coming, so watch out!"

His endless wild appealing infuriates opponents but he says it is a reflection of his eagerness, near desperation, for success rather than any contrived plan to pressurise umpires. "It`s my nature, I love being involved and anyway I am sure that spinners don`t get as many lbws as they should - especially when batsmen offer no shot."

Just about Mushtaq`s greatest strength is his ability to react to pressure himself. More often than not he is the sole spinner in a team crammed with batsmen and therefore his is a lonely responsibility. Many a spinner has freaked out when the buck stops at their twitching fingers but not this man of Multan who thrives on the idea that he can win a Test match all alone.

This in itself is an indispensable gift and one that Somerset will revel in next summer. For now we can live with the memory of the fizz and the bite, the exaggerated appeal, the camera`s close-up of those imploring eyes and the carnival-like celebrations of Mushtaq, man of the summer of

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)