VIDEO | Steve Smith channels his inner Ashwin to bowl off-spin and leg-spin in one over

Ravichandran Ashwin had made the Tamil Nadu Premier League his personal practice ground by pulling off some weird actions throughout the tournament. However, the origin of the theatrics could be traced back to the time he was ousted from India’s limited-overs squad for some wrist-spinning power addition, as he started bowling leg-spin and used in the IPL to outfox the batsmen.

Steve Smith, who had played with Ashwin in the 2017 edition of the IPL in the Rising Pune Supergiant set-up, seems to have taken a leaf out of his former teammates book, and bowled both leg-spin and off-spin in the same over when Peter Nevil threw the ball to him in order to land the team a breakthrough against Queensland in the first round of Sheffield Sheild.

When right-handed Marnus Labuschagne was on strike, he bowled his usual leg-spin but instantly switched to off-spin when left-handed Matt Renshaw came to the striker’s end. That seems to have done the trick too as he was able to control the deliveries, giving away just four runs in those two overs.