Botswana spinner comes up with a rather bizarre run-up

Cricket has become batting-friendly as the years have gone by. The bats have become wider, boundary ropes have been brought in and the fielding restrictions have made it difficult to put a curb on the batsmen, who tend to throw the kitchen sink at everything. The bowlers, therefore, resort to a number of subtle variations to somehow get the batters on the mat.

Apart from a number of variations, many of them have also worked on their run-ups. Kieron Pollard, the Windies all-rounder, bowls from way beyond the popping crease to deceive the batsmen from gauging the line and length. Indian off-break bowler Ravichandran Ashwin and South African off-spinner Johan Botha pause and deliver in order to catch the batsman napping.

Recently, the International Cricket Council (ICC) posted a video on Twitter of a bowler named Mmoloki Mooketsi, who has a pretty unique action, from Botswana. The left-arm spinner takes three steps and then speeds up gradually to eventually send the leather down. The clip is from the ICC World T20 Africa Region Qualifier C at Gaborone played on Sunday, October 28.

Impressive bowling from Mooketsi

The match was played between Botswana and Mozambique. Batting first, Botswana notched 171/3 in 20 overs. A half-century from skipper Karabo Motlanka lifted them to the formidable score. Vinoo Balakrishnan also scored 36 useful runs to help his team’s score. Chasing the score, Mozambique were shot out for 48 in 14.2 over and lost by a mammoth 123 runs.

Only one batsman- captain Kaleem Shah- got into the double figures. Mooketsi was frugal and conceded only seven runs in his three overs. He also went on to pick up the crucial wickets of Alex Conwana and Sanatana Dima. Furthermore, he took a brilliant catch to dismiss Filipe Cossa off right-arm medium pacer James Moses.

Here is the video

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