A collection of damaged fingers meant he had been in need of cricket, so a 20-year-old Mousley approached a coach on the Warwickshire Academy with connections to Sri Lanka and requested if he may get a sport. A number of weeks later he was off to Colombo.
Mousley has by no means been one to do issues the same old approach. A degree he’s now proving together with his one-of-a-kind “offspin”.
Nobody on this planet bowls like Mousley does. In line with CricViz, he’s the quickest spin bowler since ball monitoring data started in 2006. And by miles.
“We’ll take it anyway,” he jokes.
His pace has at all times been a part of his type. However in comparison with when he was youthful and inspired to decelerate, now he’s being inspired to lean into it.
“I do not know the place he is acquired it from,” England captain Jos Buttler mentioned of Mousley, who was entrusted with the ultimate over of West Indies’ innings on Sunday. “As a captain, it is distinctive. Everybody will see him now and they also’ll give you plans. However his character is certainly one of his largest attributes and to ship a little bit of distinctive ability and provides us a degree of distinction is improbable.”
“It began off as a result of individuals say offspinners cannot bowl at right-handers. However I do not consider in that, I made it clear at Warwickshire after which ended up getting a little bit of confidence. It is a totally different ability, it is most likely not conventional offspin but it surely’s a type of issues which I’ve learnt”
Dan Mousley
Mousley shall be an interesting case examine of whether or not that is the long run showing in entrance of our eyes, or a fad that’ll quickly be understood by batters and launched into orbit.
With T20 scores at all times on the up, some commentators, together with Sourav Ganguly, have known as upon bowlers to step-up and up-skill. New challenges need to be introduced to gamers and Mousley is presenting one.
In the event you wished to be merciless, you could possibly make the case that Mousley’s bowling is, by conventional aesthetics, unhealthy. Within the warm-ups, when different spinners are hammering the tea towel that is been draped on a size, he’s spraying it at tempo in varied totally different instructions. There isn’t a spin on the ball as it’s launched, as a substitute he has flipped his fingers spherical and bowled what’s just about a normal seamer.
“Any participant that isn’t attempting to get higher and diversify is a sitting duck,” he added.
Mousley just isn’t a one-trick pony both, with eight first-class wickets at a mean of 38.37, he’s able to bowling in a standard method with a standard skillset. However in the event you’re bowling to Andre Russell and Nicholas Pooran, fairly offies aren’t going to get you very far.
Briefly, somewhat than making an attempt to at all times bowl wicket-taking deliveries, he’s attempting to bowl the ball that’s hardest to hit for six.
“I am simply attempting to make use of the situations,” says Mousley, who has performed the vast majority of his T20 cricket at Edgbaston, which frequently has one lengthy aspect and one quick. “I do know I bowl loads of yorkers, however I attempt to use the size and attempt to use the wind as a lot as I can.”
Batters are honed on a lifetime of responding to sure cues. It’s why left-handed bowlers really feel sooner than right-handed bowlers as a result of batters do not have the identical degree of muscle reminiscence hard-wired into their physique. And it is this lack of familiarity which Mousley feeds off. Stick the ball in his hand and provides him a ten yard run-up and he is a 70mph seamer who’d go the gap. However off three paces and from around the wicket? No-one has seen that earlier than. Batters are live performance pianists which were educated inside an inch of their life; Mousley is asking them to play jazz.
“It began off as a result of individuals say offspinners cannot bowl at right-handers,” Mousley says.
“However I do not consider in that, I made it clear at Warwickshire I did not consider in that after which ended up getting a little bit of confidence. It went from there. It is a totally different ability, it is most likely not conventional offspin but it surely’s a type of issues which I’ve simply learnt to carry into my favour. It is okay to be totally different as a bowler.”
And if there’s one factor Mousley’s bowling is, it is precisely that.
Cameron Ponsonby is a contract cricket author in London. @cameronponsonby
