New Mishra swaps pressure for enjoyment

The new Amit Mishra might have trouble being the new Amit Mishra at the moment.

I met the new Amit Mishra during this year's IPL. He sounded almost like a sage. I asked him a question that ought to have worried him: reminded him how in 2014 he was India's second best bowler in the World T20; and that he did not go to England (though India played just the one T20 there). When we met, India hadn't planned the spate of T20 internationals during the home season leading up to the next World T20, in 2016. How did he expect to be able to stake his claim again, given India hardly play that format at international level? Did that then make the IPL a high-pressure event?

Mishra said the previous World T20 was history. That he loved to stay in the present. And the present at that time was the IPL. And that at that moment Delhi Daredevils was his India. What clichéd platitudes, I said, in words that sounded less rude. No, said Mishra. "If you don't think about things that are not in your control, you face less pressure," he said. "I don't control the team selection. I can't do anything about it, I can't say anything to anybody. In my control is my bowling, my batting, my fielding. I can improve that. I have almost stopped worrying about what's not in my control."

What had brought about this change in his personality? "I had stopped enjoying my cricket, my personal life," Mishra said. "I used to go home stressed. I couldn't do what I wanted to do with my family. I was always consumed by cricket and selection. If I would be with my family, discussions would centre on cricket.

"And I used to be under pressure on the field all the time. I wasn't bowling as well as I knew I could. Then I would think more: 'I am not bowling well. I can't get selected for this team. I am not getting picked for that squad.' Slowly I realised, 'Hey, it's better that I enjoy what's at hand. With the rest, what will be will be.'"

Two years ago, Mishra said - with no particular moment of epiphany to talk of - he began to stop thinking about the India selection. That year he took 21 IPL wickets at 18.76, giving away only 6.35 runs an over. I asked him what, then, did a good performance signify, if not a chance to make a national comeback, a higher hope? What did he think on the nights he did well?

"Enjoy just the performance, don't think if I do well I will get selected in some team. Think: if I have done well in this game, all the batsmen will be watching my video. How do I stay ahead of them? If in the next match thukai ho gayi [if I am hit around] then I should get depressed."

What began as a small conversation to find out what a fringe player thought of the limited opportunities he got was now becoming a rare insight into a late-developing bowler. Legspinners, it is said, mature late. Mishra is 32. He has had his share of chances playing for India. By the time he made his Test debut, he had already taken 300 first-class wickets, but he was introduced to the larger cricketing consciousness in India only through the IPL. He might have taken a five-for on Test debut, but he had not yet matured. Soon his slowness through the air became an enemy. He would beat batsmen in the air but they would find the time to recover. He was back to being an A team specialist, making sporadic returns, only to go back and watch other spinners succeed with accuracy and pace, and less spin (not to be confused with just sideways turn).

The last two editions of the IPL, though, and the World T20, had shown a smarter legspinner. When he took 10 wickets at 14.7 each and an economy rate of 6.68, he was the No. 5 bowler in the World T20 in 2014. Three of the top five were legspinners. "Legspinners have the skill to take wickets," Mishra said. "The batsmen should know this bowler can get him out. Bowlers are only now realising that."

What did he mean by the skill to get wickets? "Spin the ball. Not just sideways. Impart revolutions on the ball. Flight it. But also you should know when to flight it. You should have the variations. Even if you don't bowl them, the batsmen should know you have the variations."

We discussed how he has gone slower and loopier, at a time when spinners are bowling flatter and flatter. He said it gives the batsmen time to think, time to doubt, time to make mistakes. He said bowling to world-class hitters like Virender Sehwag, MS Dhoni and Glenn Maxwell, you have to force them to think, you have to give them time to think. If you bowl fast, good batsmen love it. So if it was 60 for 2 in the seventh over, and he was bowling to Maxwell for the first time, what would his first delivery be? "The hardest-spun legbreak." What if he pulls off a reverse sweep? "That means he doesn't fancy facing me properly. I will bowl another big legbreak."

One of the bigger changes Mishra has made over the years is the front-of-the-hand quicker delivery, which spins less and skids through, making sure the batsmen have more to do than sit back and play only his slower legbreak after it has turned. "It has been hard work," Mishra said. "I have worked really hard to develop these variations. Whenever I can get hold of anybody - senior player, batsman, coach - I show them the variations and ask them if they can pick it. When I was in Bangladesh I used to bowl to MS Dhoni and would ask him if the changes are too obvious.

"Every time I meet Anil Kumble and LS [L Sivaramakrishnan, former legspinner and now commentator] I discuss my bowling with them. They have told me you can't survive with just one legbreak. You need two legbreaks, one that turns a lot and the other that turns just enough to take the edge. You need two different paces of legbreak. You need a quicker legbreak so that the batsman can't afford to just sit back the moment he sees a flatter delivery."

It is an art to do all this without changing your action. To bowl a big legbreak you have to put a lot of shoulder, wrist, body into it. You have to hold back for the smaller legbreak, which is hard to tell from outside. "That's the whole point. You shouldn't know it, the batsman shouldn't know it."

They are catching up, though. This is a world of video analysis, and Mishra watches plenty, both of himself and batsmen. He knows he has a tendency to at times let his body weight fall away from the umpire, because of which he ends up pushing the ball down the leg side. He now doesn't need a coach to tell him that.

Another big difference is the mind games with the batsmen. With some batsmen - and he won't name them lest it come across as arrogant - Mishra said he can tell from the body language when they will try the release shot. And video analysis reveals what their big shot is. Batsmen, too, catch up and bluff with their body language. They too start to look for signs of when the bowler is going to bowl the variation. In T20, with more riding on every ball than in any other format, it has meant more pressure and more preparation.

Mishra spoke about adapting. Sometimes the asking rate is so high that as a spinner you bowl aiming only to deny batsmen boundaries. Sometimes you have to go for wickets. Sometimes you know a batsman is expecting a variation, and you keep teasing him, making him wait for it. Sometimes you sneak one in when he is least expecting it. He knows the batsmen are not taking risks against him now.

"They are choosing one ball per over to hit," Mishra said. "That brings in premeditation and risk. I can see they are happy with singles and not giving me wickets, which might mean I am slightly ahead right now, but I will have to adapt to this too. Find ways to take wickets again."

It felt like talking to an experienced legspinner. Mishra was not just talking about "right areas". He was in touch with his art enough to be able to explain the nuances. Maybe it took him long to learn them. And it has made him feel wistful again. I asked him if he wondered what might have been if he had been this smart earlier. He slowed down a moment, and then said, "No doubt, if I had learnt all this earlier I would have done better at international level. It is not too late yet. I am doing well. I am making the batsmen think twice."

Of late he hasn't been able to make the selectors think twice despite the stellar performance in the World T20. Between the two IPLs and the World T20, Karn Sharma got a Test debut and Axar Patel played the World Cup. Didn't that leave Mishra disappointed? This made him a little rueful.

"Everybody feels that," he said and paused. There was a little heaviness in the voice. It was missing out on the World Cup that had left him disappointed. He composed himself in a second and said, "Ask any cricketer in India - he wants to play for India. That is everybody's dream. It is my dream too. It is other spinners' dream too. Just that the World Cup comes only once every four years. It is just different."

I couldn't sense any bitterness, though, towards Karn or Axar, neither of whom has the body of work to rival - let alone put in the shade - Mishra's in traditional domestic cricket. They are just about as good or as bad as Mishra in the IPL. What they have going for them is age. Axar is 21, Karn is 27.

Mishra can see that. He is trying to work harder on his fitness to counter his older age of 32. He might even understand losing out to younger spinners, but he will have seen newspapers with squad lists that would have crushed the old Amit Mishra. One first-choice spinner has been rested, another has been dropped, and yet Mishra has not been called up to play for India. He has lost out not just to 21- and 27-year-olds, but also to a 34-year-old. That despite the selectors stating that they have selected with the World T20 in mind.

Hopefully the new Amit Mishra will see that he has been selected for India A against the touring Australians. That India A is his India now. That he need not worry about selection, but take wickets in the A series. Make them think twice about this late-maturing legspinner.