The strangers at the gate: West Indies have three spinners India barely know – and that’s precisely the problem

Growing up, he was too short for his age and parents worried about him. But then there was a growth spurt that saw him climb to six feet. Height translates to bounce.

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Sometimes, he gets innocuous turn into the left-hander. He once bowled Ben Stokes with a tossed-up beast that foxed him in the air and spun back to hit the stumps. His wrist-spun deliveries don’t turn as much but produce drift into lefties. He employs them intermittently against the right-handers as well. The temptation, when it came to expanding his repertoire, was adding the carrom ball. That was routine. Left-arm wrist spin was different. But the bigger catalyst in his transformation journey was building control. “At the start of the career, all I was thinking about was variations but the more important thing was build control. I was giving one boundary ball at least an over. I had to stop this and for this I needed to build control,” he said.

Variation with control is the perfect storm. This tournament, despite bowling on some belters, his economy rate is 7.55. He efficiently harnesses the depth of the crease, shuffles his angles and release points. All his three games against India had come in ODIs two years ago. Just four of this team and two in the first eleven (Axar Patel and Sanju Samson) have encountered him. He leaked only 3.88 runs an over. He has not featured in IPL either, making him a largely unfamiliar proposition for most of India’s batsmen.

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However, the new-ball duties could be dispensed on fellow left-arm colleague Akeal Hosein, a more familiar bowler who could put the squeeze on a dead track. Equipped with an old-school, classical arm ball, he has developed a knuckle ball too, which he judiciously uses. It was inspired by Sunil Narine, who is like a mentor to him at the Trinbago Knight Riders. “He’s told me: ‘It’s time, be brave,’ and I became braver,” he would say. Narine and Kieron Pollard helped him find a part-time job and lodging in his coming-up years.

The most lethal of Hosein’s deliveries is the arm ball, the canted seam rotating perfectly and drifting deliciously in, especially if there is a current of breeze wafting across the ground. Where Motie developed wrist spin to boost his variations, Hosein shed it for finger spin after recurrent injuries from the wrist-spin action.

Motie has a toughness of heart nurtured by his upbringing in Laventille, a crime-infested town in East Port of Spain. He has lost friends to gangs and gang wars; cricket was an escape from realities. The challenges the 22 yards throws up don’t crush him. He is not unused to the Eden Gardens, having spent a season in the KKR setup without playing a game. “Having the opportunity to spend more time with him (Narine) in the KKR setup helped me a lot in terms of confidence and bowling in different conditions,” he would say. He is not obsessed with variations, rather, “I think it’s who is in front of you and what is best suited to getting them out.”

If Hosein, who was dropped for the South Africa game, does not return, Motie’s support act would be the lanky spin-bowling all-rounder Roston Chase. He is a moody operator, but when in flow, he gets good bounce and over-spin. He could drop that one gift ball that undoes all his thrift, but given Indian left-handers’ storied woes against off-spinners, Chase could well be in the scheme. He is the slowest of them, has a lazy windmill of an action from three steps, but batsmen underestimate him at their own peril. Darren Sammy kept his cards close to his chest. “You will know when it’s time to know,” he would say. But Motie, Hosein, and Chase — those three not-so-little pals — could make life harrowing for India’s batsmen.