very interested in captaingrumpy's thoughts
Everyone opines the obvious with Ish, lack of control and dishing up boundary balls and his test record and first class record suffer the same plight.
He has wicket taking deliveries, but he cannot keep batsmen under pressure as they score so freely against him with the red ball.
But the engima, at first blush, is that he pretty darn good at 50 over list A cricket. He suddenly becomes fairly economical compared to the rest of the bowlers.
Just look at this season's list A scorecards.
If he has sufficient control to bowl economical overs in ODI cricket, why cannot he maintain control over his attacking deliveries in first class cricket? They may well be harder to bowl, but leg spin is hard to bowl fullstop.
Is he trying to spin the red ball far more and losing control? Is he tossing it up more and losing control of where it pitches? Just what is he bowling in the List A matches? Darts? Is he only getting wickets in List A when the slog is on? If not, and its the field setting, cannot his first class fields be smarter? With some men on the boundary as well as close in field? Is it his natural inaccuracy that makes it difficult for pyjama batsmen to premeditate shots whereas in whites they wait for bad balls? Are list A batsmen more concerned about his googly and curb playing a big shot to him just in case?
I understand he will be "protected" somewhat in List A and not bowling too many powerplay overs and at the death. But with Sodhi, Santner and J Boult all in the team, he must be bowling some tough overs. Must be frustrating for both him and the coaches. I have not seen enough of his domestic List A games to know what Ish is bowling.
But we seem to be seeing more and more leg spinners doing well in the ODI game and not having the same success in the test game and the common consensus from former players is it is because they can possibly spin the ball either way and their natural inaccuracy makes more batsmen more circumspect in pyjama cricket. Brad Hogg and Imran Tahir are prime examples. So his international career is far from over, even if he cannot sort out his red ball game.