Rashid Khan loves a battle. Even now, when he's not winning many of them, he comes to the bowling crease with an I'm-gonna-get-you grin. The Gujarat Titans (GT) legspinner is averaging 143.00 in IPL 2025. In each of the last three years, he has suffered a bowling spell where he conceded over 50 runs. Last week, he came within one run of equaling his worst figures in the tournament.  Rashid has not appeared worried by any of this. It's almost like he has other things on his mind.

There might have been a glimpse of it when he bowled to Nitish Kumar Reddy on Sunday. The ball was reverse-swept for four, but he still had that smile on his face, polluted only slightly by wryness, as he re-enacted what had happened. A legbreak that had popped up in the air and then plummeted down to earth. He has been chasing that. There has been a 14% increase in the number of full deliveries he's bowled over the last two years. This pursuit, though, has not been without a little bit of pain.

A bowler who once had a balls-per-six ratio as high as 43 has seen it dip to 15 in 2023 and 13 in 2024. Now it's less than eight. He's become hittable. Teams are clearly making use of the longer batting line-ups they have been afforded thanks to the Impact Player rule. Almost all of Rashid's success as a T20 bowler is the result of being unconventional, from his action - a bowling arm too close to the perpendicular and similar releases for both the legbreak and the googly even though only one of them should be coming out the back of the hand - to his principles - a desperation to contain runs.

An indifference to taking wickets. Stump-to-stump. Into-the-pitch. If Shane Warne wrote the classical legspinner's code, Rashid remixed it. There is a cute little story from Mike Hussey about how he thought he'd picked up a cue in the Afghan's bowling action and sent it across to the rest of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) team only for it to backfire spectacularly. MS Dhoni saw the email. He went out to bat with it in mind. He got bowled for 9.

At his best, even the most experienced players, with the benefit of a cheat sheet, were still unable to see through Rashid's deception. Maybe driving the ball into the pitch over and over has got harder and harder after his back injury in 2023; maybe, he wants to be able to deceive batters in the air too; maybe he's just doing it all on a dare. Whatever the reason, one of spin bowling's greatest freestylers has developed a compulsion for convention. 

Only Rashid will know why he is bowling fuller now and whether it is worth the trouble. His team still trusts him. GT had a slip for him deep into the third over of his spell against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). He had Heinrich Klaasen caught in the crease with a ball that he could never hope to reach on the front foot and one that wasn't short enough to go on the back foot to. Uncertainty ruled the batter's mind as he moved to protect his stumps. His outside edge saved him from an early shower. And Rashid had that smile again.

That knowing smile. He knew he had come close. Funny thing is, had that gone past Klaasen as it was intended to, it would only have been the second wicket of a right-hand batter that Rashid has taken with his stock ball - the legbreak - in the last two IPLs. All bowlers have ups and downs and four games is still too early in the season to make an informed opinion. Not when we're talking about a bowler who has over 600 T20 wickets. What we can say is that Rashid is trying something new and he might need a little time to get it right.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)