Adil Rashid replicates ‘Ball of the Century’ in T20 game

It has been 24 years since Shane Warne bowled a magical delivery on his Ashes debut to bewilder Mike Gatting. It was a delivery which gave Warne a lot of recognition as a young leg-spinner and was later regarded as the ‘Ball of the Century’. England leg-spinner Adil Rashid bowled a similar delivery in the NatWest T20 Blast on Wednesday.

Rashid hits top of off

Playing for Yorkshire against Durham at Leeds, Rashid produced a Man of the Match performance picking a career best 4/19. After snapping former English captain Colingwood’s wicket, Rashid produced a snorter of a delivery to bamboozle Michael Richardson in the 12th over of the chase. Rashid is known to be an attacking spinner but has the tendency of being inconsistent with his control. But he can give the ball a fair bit of rip and is a much-improved bowler in the last 18 months.

Rashid’s delivery pitched outside leg and turned sharply to hit the top of off stump making it a dream delivery for any leg-spinner. The remarkable aspect about Rashid’s bowling is that he spins it at pace because he gets decent revolutions on the ball. All Richardson could do was feel for the ball as it went past him to take his off-stump. He did not get any sort of stride forward as he never expected it to turn so sharply.

Shane Warne’s delivery was similar but from the technical point of view, it had drifted towards the leg stump and then turned sharply to take Gatting’s off-stump. The drift prompted Gatting to try and turn the ball towards the leg side which brought his downfall.

To Rashid’s credit, it was an enormous delivery to bowl in a T20 game. It is always a great sight to watch a leg-spinner in operation for the fans. The 29-year old’s spell enabled his side to win the game by 24 runs.

Watch the video here:

Pitch outside leg, hit top of off stump ?

Is this the PERFECT leg-spinner? pic.twitter.com/TrdK55sJOc

— NatWest T20 Blast (@NatWestT20Blast) July 26, 2017