Rashid Can Shine Like A T20 Murali

Tim Wigmore is tipping Afghan spin king Rashid Khan to be the next big thing in T20 after his rapid Big Bash rise

Sometimes, T20 is derided as a lottery, a game played for entertainment and driven by plain old chance. Look at Rashid Khan’s bowling figures this Big Bash League season, and the notion looks utterly absurd.

In his first five games, Rashid recorded figures of 2-22, 2-22, 2-19, 2-18 and then 2-21: absurdly consistent, and absurdly good. So, in every innings, he has bowled his full allocation of four overs, conceded under six runs an over and taken two wickets. That’s remarkable – and even more so when you consider Rashid’s versatility. He has bowled in the Powerplay – including when he dismissed Chris Lynn in the second over of the innings – in the middle overs and at the death. No wonder that he is ranked the third best T20 bowler in the world.

Rashid is much more than a brilliant bowler. He is a cricketer who teams can recalibrate their entire strategies around.

In T20 cricket, winning the toss and chasing has become increasingly popular: a recognition that it tends to be easier to chase. How, after all, can a side batting first gauge whether a wicket is a 190 wicket or a 175 wicket, say? In the 2016/17 Big Bash, only seven teams in 35 games chose to bat first after winning the toss – and they lost every time.