Almost-forgotten Mohit is back, and he's the same bowler he used to be
Mohit Sharma had kept at it, behind the scenes, and made sure he was ready for his moment when it came, ready to make it his
Karthik Krishnaswamy
14-Apr-2023
There's been a retro flavour to IPL 2023. MS Dhoni is smacking it at a 200-plus strike rate. Amit Mishra, Piyush Chawla and Karn Sharma are taking wickets and reminding the world that no team is complete without a chubby legspinner.
Thursday night in Mohali was yet another retro night. Gujarat Titans were fresh off a shock defeat in which one of their young quicks, Yash Dayal, had been hit for five successive sixes in a dramatic final over. They took Dayal out of the firing line for this game against Punjab Kings, and replaced him with a 34-year-old, whose last season as an IPL regular was in 2018. He'd played one game in 2019, one in 2020, and nothing since.
Mohit Sharma. Purple Cap winner in 2014. World Cup semi-finalist in 2015. He had disappeared from our TV screens for years and years, and he was back now.
He was back, and from a spectator's distance he seemed to be the same bowler he has always been. He was doing the same things he's always done, and he was doing them well.
Mohali served up an interesting pitch for this game - Titans captain Hardik Pandya suggested afterwards that it was a hard pitch where the new ball came on to the bat beautifully, but so hard that it quickly roughened up and softened up the ball. This meant that by the time Mohit came on, in the 11th over of Punjab's innings, the ball was in just the sort of shape to behave a little unpredictably off the pitch.
Mohit is a natural at maximising that sort of unpredictability. He hits an awkward, bail-trimming length - too short to drive on the up, not short enough to pull. And he's always been adept at hitting that length while shuffling through his variations - on pace, either with the seam upright or scrambled, or off pace, delivered either as an offcutter or out of the back of the hand.
Everything about his comeback screamed pragmatism. At this time last year, Mohit was travelling around the IPL with Titans as a net bowler. Mohit had gone unsold at the auction, and he'd jumped at the chance to train and work on his bowling when Titans coach Ashish Nehra had offered him the net-bowler role
On a pitch that's a little bit two-paced, or when he's armed with an old ball that's gone a little soft, Mohit can be extremely hard to hit.
Punjab discovered this on Thursday, and it was a gradual realisation rather than a sudden jolt of knowledge, a realisation that dawned over a succession of dot balls and half-timed singles to deep fielders. By the time he was finished, with figures of 4-0-18-2 next to his name, their innings had stalled and stultified.
Mohit dismissed Jitesh Sharma in his first over, the ball straightening ever so slightly from that in-between length to brush the outside edge of an attempted back-foot punch. Sam Curran joined Bhanuka Rajapaksa at the crease, and Punjab had a left-left pair at the crease all the way until Mohit's final over.
Mohit took his second wicket in that final over, the 19th of the innings, hitting the pitch hard with an offcutter-bouncer and daring Curran to hit against the angle, against the deviation, and towards the longer leg-side boundary. Curran took on the shot, and picked out deep midwicket. This was the perfect Mohit wicket, full of skill and smart playing of percentages.
"If you have to upgrade your cricket or better it in any way, you need competitive practice. I felt, what am I going to do sitting at home? I was here and doing competitive practice instead, I kept myself involved in cricket, and I think it was a good time for me"Mohit Sharma, on spending IPL 2022 as a net bowler with Gujarat Titans
The right-handed Shahrukh Khan walked out to the crease, and this was immediately followed by what may have been the day's first sighting of Mohit's most famous party trick, the back-of-the-hand slower ball.
This is the ball that made Mohit's name, a dipping topspinner that emerges with the seam miraculously upright. It's a more spectacular variation than his offcutter, and comes out of his hand with a far bigger drop in speed, but on this day, he shelved it for most of his spell because he was bowling mostly to left-hand batters and wanted to use the variation that deviates away from them. Another illustration of the smart, pragmatic cricketer Mohit is.
Everything about his comeback screamed pragmatism. At this time last year, Mohit was travelling around the IPL with Titans as a net bowler. Mohit had gone unsold at the auction, and he'd jumped at the chance to train and work on his bowling when Titans coach Ashish Nehra had offered him the net-bowler role.
"I had had a back surgery, and a lot of people weren't sure if I had played enough domestic cricket [to be signed at the auction]," Mohit said when he was interviewed by Star Sports between innings. "I got a call from Ashu bhai, saying I should be with the team, and if someone gets injured I'd get a chance.
"Obviously, if you have to upgrade your cricket or better it in any way, you need competitive practice. I felt, what am I going to do sitting at home? I was here and doing competitive practice instead, I kept myself involved in cricket, and I think it was a good time for me."
You may think that a cricketer of Mohit's experience and stature might balk at being a net bowler, but he didn't see it that way.
"It's not a bad thing to be a net bowler," he said. "You get very good exposure, you get to play alongside good players, and if you don't do competitive practice, your cricket won't evolve."
Mohit Sharma. He had all but disappeared from our TV screens for years and years, but he'd never really gone away. He'd kept at it, behind the scenes, and made sure he was ready for his moment when it came, ready to make it his.
Karthik Krishnaswamy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo