The doorknob twist: How Lungi Ngidi learned cricket’s deadliest slower ball from Dwayne Bravo

Raw pace had made Ngidi effective in red-ball cricket, but T20s demanded something more. He needed variety to survive. “I was at the IPL with Bravo, and that entire IPL, that is all I worked on,” Ngidi would say. “I wasn’t playing much, so I got time to practice it.”

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Against India in the Super 8 fixture at Ahmedabad, Ngidi returned figures of 4-0-15-0. Nearly half his deliveries were below 120 kilometres per hour. Released with usual arm speed, usual trajectory—but at the point of release, his wrist snapped sideways like turning a doorknob. The ball dipped at batsmen at the last moment. That dip was the most vital ingredient of the deadly cocktail.

In a World Cup where South African quicks have dominated, Ngidi’s slower deliveries have become the hardest to decode.

Only Jasprit Bumrah’s variations have matched the impact. The Indian bowler has similar release mechanics, aided by the hyper-extension of his elbow. For Ngidi, with his high-arm action, it’s a more challenging skill to execute. To accommodate that doorknob twist, Ngidi has had to innovate.

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Eric Simons had worked with Ngidi in the Proteas setup. He’d also studied Dwayne Bravo’s off-cutter closely, videotaping it in practice, frame by frame. What he noticed changed everything.

“Most bowl the off-cutter as opening a doorknob,” Simons explains. “But the difference with Lungi is that the doorknob is literally vertical above him. His fingers go around the back of the ball, not over the top. A few millimetres makes the difference—it allows the arm speed to be faster, the ball comes out slower and dips later because of the action on the ball at that angle.”

South African pacer Lungi Ngidi in action during T20 World Cup 2026. (PHOTO: AP)

Fingers around the back of the ball, not over the top. That subtle shift in hand position creates the deception. He has to literally squeeze out the ball with his fingertips; Bumrah gets more real estate on the ball. Ngidi’s arm comes over at full speed, giving batsmen no visual cue. But because the fingers are positioned differently, the ball releases slower, with different spin, dipping later than expected.

That’s what Simons showed Ngidi when they started from scratch.

“It was obvious DJ [Bravo] had a very good off-cutter,” Simons says. “I videotaped it in practice and noticed his fingers go around the back of the ball, not over the top at all. That’s the difference between what most bowlers do and DJ and Lungi.”

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Bravo operated mostly in the early 130s kilometres per hour. His slower deliveries were so frequent batsmen expected them—though they still struggled. That’s what made him special: even when you knew it was coming, the execution was so precise it didn’t matter. But Bravo had to add wide-yorkers and other dimensions to stay unpredictable.

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Ngidi had a different advantage. He clocks consistently in the mid-140s. His slower deliveries drop 20 to 30 kilometres per hour. The pace gap makes it harder for batsmen to adjust, especially with the late dip he generates.

“Lungi was always a faster bowler than DJ, so it’s more about the difference between top speed and the pace off it,” Simons says. “The bigger the gap in pace, the more difficult to deal with.”

Over the seasons, Ngidi has refined it further. He usually takes one finger off the ball when he bowls it now. Against India at Ahmedabad, he used leg-cutters because Indian batsmen came prepared for off-cutters. They’d studied him, anticipated the final finger-twist. So Ngidi adjusted mid-match, changing the axis of spin. Trial and error. Adaptation.

From that glove work at CSK, standing metres away from Simons, releasing over and over, perfecting the wrist snap, to Ahmedabad where half his deliveries dipped below 120 kilometres per hour. Now, the Kiwis will be ready, expecting the ball of the tournament to be weaponised against them. But expecting and stopping are totally different things.