Ever since Titas Sadhu took six wickets at 12.83 in the Under-19 World Cup this year, there have been whispers in Indian cricket circles that she was ready to lead the pace attack for the women’s team. It took just one delivery from Titas in the Asian Games final against Sri Lanka to suggest that such speculation wasn’t wide of the mark. It was a gentle outswinger that tempted Anushka Sanjeewani to go for the big shot, but all she could was spoon a catch to the fielder stationed at mid-on.
More than the outswinger, the essence of that scalp was Titas’s ability to lift her game for the big occasion. She wasn’t done yet. The very next ball was a quintessential nip-backer, which cleaned up Vishmi Gunaratne. It was the awkward inward angle that proved to be too much for Sri Lanka’s No. 3 to tackle. At that stage of the game, Sri Lanka would have still believed they have a chance to take home the coveted gold Medal. Chamari Athapaththu, their greatest player, was at the crease and still batting.
Unfortunately for Sri Lanka, Athapaththu, who got bogged down after a blazing first over against Deepti Sharma, could only steer a catch to the fielder stationed at covers in Titas’s second over. It was true that Titas’s short-of-length delivery was wide and there to be hit, but as the ball gripped the pitch, Athapaththu mistimed her shot.
Just a glance through the above descriptions, and one would perhaps wonder why Titas is tipped as a player of burgeoning potential. After all, two of the three wickets came from modest deliveries. To understand the nuances of Titas’s bowling, one has to delve deeper. At 5’8″, she is relatively tall, and with a high-arm action, she extracts a bit of bounce. The way she whistled past the outside edge off the sixth ball of her first over served as an example of that.
With a front-arm action, Titas also mostly nips it back into the right-hand batter. In limited-overs cricket, this could turn out to be a key weapon in her quiver. The reason is that the inward angle would mean the right-hand batters are offered no width. So, is there any skill that she needs to upgrade? Possibly the outswinger. As of now, it feels telegraphed, with her wrist action easy for the batter to decode. Having said that, there is a school of thought that if a pace bowler mostly nips it back, then a few that straighten are enough as a variation.
Titas started playing the game without any thoughts of taking it up seriously. Some years later, at just 18, she is already one of the mainstays of the Indian attack. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if in a few years’ time, she ended up as the pace spearhead.