WATCH: Street-smart Scotland spinner Mark Watt bowls from behind wicket to confuse batter

Scotland spinner Mark Watt produced a moment of innovativeness while bowling against Bangladesh in their opening group game of the 2021 T20 Men’s World Cup. They were off to a brilliant start with the ball while defending the 141-run target, and in a bid to add to their early two wickets, Watt tried something different […]
 

Scotland spinner Mark Watt produced a moment of innovativeness while bowling against Bangladesh in their opening group game of the 2021 T20 Men’s World Cup. They were off to a brilliant start with the ball while defending the 141-run target, and in a bid to add to their early two wickets, Watt tried something different with his left-arm spin to catch Mushfiqur Rahim by surprise.

In the 8th over of the game, the tall left-arm spinner took his run up the way he usually does. Mark Wyatt has predominantly bowled quite wide of the crease, trying to use the angle before moving it away from the right-handed.  But this time, he only did it halfway and released the ball well before the pop-up crease, giving Mushfiqur some second thoughts. He gently tapped it to the long-on fielder and picked up a single.

This isn’t a new tactic implemented by bowlers, in the past, the likes of Kieron Pollard and Rangana Herath tried doing so. However, most bowlers found very little success as this attempt tends to reduce the pace and power on the ball, making it loop a bit harmlessly. What it definitely does, is takes pace off the ball, making it difficult for the batter to get their shots through.

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Here’s the video of Scotland spinner Mark Watt doing something out of the box to surprise the batter.

Scotland batted first in this encounter, and struggled to get runs in the initial overs. Skipper Kyle Coetzer was dismissed very early on, but George Munsey carried the next few overs through.  Chris Greaves and Mark Watt produced a stellar performance with the bat in the lower middle order, taking them to 140 runs in their 20 overs for the loss of 9 wickets.

Bangladesh have lost two early wickets and remained at 59/2 at the halfway stage. They are finding it difficult to pull through, but they do have the firepower to make things happen towards the end of the game.