Ish Sodhi has seen the mounting challenges wristspinners have faced in T20 cricket over the years. He is the second most experienced spinner by T20Is played, only five matches behind fellow leggie, England's Adil Rashid. Sodhi, who is 33, and is the third-highest wicket-taker in T20Is, has had to evolve and make significant changes in his bowling to stay relevant. He continues to be a devotee of the late Shane Warne. In a chat at the R Premadasa stadium the day before New Zealand play Sri Lanka, Sodhi spoke about some of his variations, why he changed his run-up, and why he still messages Warne.
One of the last balls you delivered at training this afternoon was a quicker delivery that broke through Rachin Ravindra's defence as he tried to flick it, and hit his leg stump. Can you talk about that delivery?
It's actually a ball that I have been working on for quite a while - it's an old-fashioned flipper, the same way Warnie [Shane Warne] taught it. When I was growing up, watching Warnie bowl the flipper was something I got addicted to watching. It hasn't been until probably the last couple of years of my career where I have actually started to use it a little bit more, but it's just my version of being able to bowl a ball that's slightly quicker.
The game has changed so much that you need to almost be able to force batters on the back foot. And so that's a ball that I have worked on to supplement my others, to be able to force batters back.
I've been trying to bowl the flipper since I was 13 years old. It's just such a tough ball to master and it's been [coming out of the hand] nicely recently because I have used it a lot more internationally, got a few wickets with it. But at times I'd become one-paced. Growing up bowling in New Zealand, you have to give the ball [the rip], you have to be able to get spin off the surface, because we just don't get the reaction off the pitch that usually you'd see [elsewhere]. So it's a ball that I've sort of developed.
Sometimes I even send Warnie a text message every now and then with a video of the flipper that I have got a wicket with, and I'm like, "Warnie, wish you could see this!" Obviously he's not receiving them, or he might be receiving them somehow. Because the couple of interactions that I had with him at Rajasthan Royals [Sodhi played for RR in the IPL in two seasons in the late 2010s], he taught me a few tricks around the flipper, so it's a shame that he can't see it come out.
You mean you used to send them to Warne, right?
I still send them now (laughs). He was like God. And he was such an amazing mentor, and so cool to be around. He was awesome.
And how do you deliver the flipper?
It's like a flicker. So you pretty much click your fingers [repeatedly snaps thumb against middle finger on the right hand]. You chuck a ball in there and you click it and the ball goes sort of forward. That's why it's so hard to control. But yeah, I can't bowl as fast as other spin bowlers, so that for me is a ball that can come out a bit quicker.
So at the speed that I watched you deliver, from where I was sitting virtually behind the bat, I thought it was pretty quick. Are are saying spinners deliver much faster balls?
Oh mate, you should see Rashid Khan or Noor Ahmed up close and personal, or Maheesh Theekshana - these guys will sometimes bowl 105kph or 107kph. A lot of these guys bowl so fast. I think it's probably reflective of the conditions they grew up in. If there's reaction off the wicket, you can bowl really quickly and it happens at pace, whereas in New Zealand it's so hard because if you grow up bowling that pace and the ball just comes on on flat, true tracks, the ball can just get collected. And so you have to be able to vary your pace quite nicely. And that's why you see guys like Mitch Santner, who does vary pace a lot.
I come from a really traditional background. Originally I always just wanted to bowl the perfect slow legbreak delivery, but cricket's just changed so much now that you have to maybe bowl a fraction quicker at times. But in a funny way, the irony of it all is, recently we've seen in this World Cup, the slower you bowl, the harder it has been for batters. Because a lot of bowlers do bowl really quickly, and maybe batters across the board are getting used to it. So it's probably a new cycle of spin bowling in T20 cricket that we are going through at the moment, and something you've got to keep adapting to.
At the start of your run-up you twirl the ball high up like a classical legspinner. But in your run-up, you are bounding in, not walking in as you might expect of a spinner. Has it always been like this?
Not at all. I used to walk in and bowl [earlier]. It was like 2022 that I decided to start running in a little bit harder. That was just a period of my career where, for some reason, I couldn't get the ball down the end as fast as I wanted to. So I thought to move with the times and be adaptable, I was going to change my run-up slightly. And that's kind of when it started.
And I ended up having a bit of success not only in T20, but I sort of went back and played Test cricket again with that run-up and played some ODIs overseas and did quite well, too. T20 cricket's going through another one of those cycles, so while having that run-up increases a bit of momentum, you still have to be able to now put a bit of craft in as well.
You are the third leading wicket-taker in T20Is behind Rashid Khan and Tim Southee. Only Adil Rashid has played more T20I matches than you. How has your wealth of experience come in handy for you?
It changes so frequently. So you can often look back at times where certain skills were required and I suppose when you play a lot of games you sort of think, well, this is how I reacted that time and it didn't work, so I'm going to do something that did work, or perhaps, I was put in the same situation and I nailed it and it went really well, so I'm just going to commit to that again. So I guess that's where the experience comes in somewhat handy.
But yeah, look, to be the third leading wicket-taker in the world as a legspinner in a country like New Zealand - I mean you often see a lot of overseas spinners come over to New Zealand and it's really, really tough to bowl. The boundaries are tiny, wickets are pretty glossy, they're green, sometimes they're wet. So it is something that I'm incredibly proud of to not only be one of the highest wicket-takers in the world [as legspinner], but to have played for as long as I have, given the conditions are completely unsuited to spin bowlers. You have to find numerous different ways to not only get wickets but to survive on those grounds for long periods of time, and if you can do that, I think that's something I'm really proud of.
Do you feel like a stranger in a crowd of mystery spinners in T20 cricket?
I know what you mean. Not necessarily. Maybe 20, 30 years ago a 33-year-old was an old bowler, but nowadays at 33 you are still in line to be able to learn new skills, get better. And I played a few games in the last year or so where I started bowling in the powerplay and learned how to bowl some carrom balls. It was just a way to try to improve and enhance my game, and maybe in the future that's something I do a little bit more of. I am 33. I don't want to get to 45 and be like, oh, I didn't give it a crack.
How many variations do you have?
At the moment I have four that I bowl: legspinner, googly, flipper and a slider. You can get creative and bowl all sorts of different deliveries, but what I have seen in this World Cup so far is that simplicity has worked really well. Like Graeme Cremer from Zimbabwe - he's come back after a pretty long layoff in international cricket and he's genuinely bowling textbook legspin. It's 45 degrees out of the hand, it's nice and slow and he's been really successful in this tournament so far. There's room for all types of bowlers still, but it will be nice to have the skills to be able to bowl any situation, and that's something I'd like to train for.
The other guy who is a classical legspinner is Adil Rashid. He hangs the ball in the air. I don't think any other spinner I've seen bowls that slow in white-ball cricket. He got carted at times in this tournament, but he still has that courage to keep flighting the ball. Have you ever spoken to him?
I have played a lot against Adil Rashid, but I haven't really been able to talk a lot of spin with him over the years. I have always been a great admirer of his skill, as someone that's dominated international cricket. Again, he is someone who has succeeded in a country like England, where it's not necessarily the most ideal conditions for spin bowling. Also where he comes from - Headingley - is a really, really tough place to bowl. So he's been incredible over the last few years.
He's almost bought into the fact that sometimes those flat balls, if you miss slightly, are so easy to hit for six. So he's gone the other way and gone even slower. And I saw the other day he bowled something at 63kph. I invite viewers to look at that and [imagine] how tough that really is to do: to bowl that slowly and still put energy on the ball. It's going down at 63 kph, but it's got so many revs on it. The skill level is phenomenal to watch. And like you say, he might've been hit a couple of times in this World Cup, but he's a class bowler and he has been for so long and yeah, I do really admire that courage that he bowls with. And he's probably a textbook league spinner as well.
Do you think you have that kind of courage?
I don't know if I could bowl that slow. Especially running in now, I don't think physically I could bowl that slowly. If I was to slow it up, I'd probably be in the late 70s or early 80s [kph] as opposed to being 63kph. There's definitely room for it, although 63 kph is probably out of my skill set.
In the current cycle, since the 2024 T20 World Cup, you have featured in 21 of the 36 matches New Zealand have played. Despite not getting a national contract, you have found a place in the side, with head coach Rob Walter believing you have a role to play. What is the role given to you?
My role always is to look to take wickets for New Zealand. The more I think about it, given the conditions that we play in generally, if you lose that wicket-taking mindset, sometimes your good balls go for six anyway, so you may as well be looking to try to take wickets.
It's been amazing to sort of be backed by Rob as well. Not to have a contract obviously was naturally quite disappointing. But once the new coaching staff came on, I still played quite a lot of T20 cricket, and obviously at this World Cup I'm really enjoying being part of the squad, as I always have. The role is always simple: look to be aggressive, supplement some bowlers at the other end, like Mitch Santner, who is incredible at tying batters up, and through that, hopefully there's some risks taken at the other end and I can cash in and take a couple of wickets, but that's been probably my role for the last 12 or 13 years. I don't think it's changed a lot.
From the outside it feels like Ish Sodhi gets into the side mostly on turning tracks. True or false?
I don't know. I think it's an interesting one because most of the tracks I play on don't turn. I play in New Zealand, it doesn't spin. We went to India recently, the wickets are reasonably flat. When it comes to world tournaments, the balance of the side is probably something that's played against me at times. And so I might come in when there's the potential of a wicket turning a little bit. So I can't honestly say that I only play on turning tracks.
Talking about flat pitches, in the T20 series in India in January, you went for 29 runs in an over in two matches. What goes through your mind when you analyse that later?
I think both came against left-handers on a bit of a heater [flat pitch]. It's an occupational hazard to get pumped on these small grounds against some of these batters who train at hitting sixes for fun. That series in particular, almost all the bowlers got smashed almost every game. I mean, for me Mitch Santer is the most versatile bowler in the world and even Santner went for runs. You can look at it and analyse it all you want, but the good thing about it was I sort of tried my different variations.
It's very easy to sort of go, oh, I need to do something completely different, or in different games against different opposition, you bowl the exact same way and you might go right. That's another part where experience comes in somewhat handy - if that was early in my career, I'd probably analyse it a lot more harshly or negatively and be a little bit more disheartened by it. But the more you play, and especially with the way the game's changing, you've still got to look to be in the battle and try to get wickets. And so, like I say, getting hit for runs is an occupational hazard.
Where you stand now, what are the goals you have set?
T20 cricket is probably the cricket that's most played and watched and enjoyed at the moment. Personally I really love playing the longer formats, whether that's playing for Canterbury at the moment or if I get the chance to play for New Zealand over the coming years. I just still remember watching Imran Tahir. When he came into international cricket, he would've been a little bit younger than I am now and he's still playing cricket. I mean, I think he debuted in first class cricket in 1996. I might've played him last year or something crazy like that.
As long as the passion is still there and the drive to get better, there's a lot more cricket left in me. I would love to continue playing for New Zealand as long as I can. There's a home T20 World Cup in 2028, which is a goal that I might try to set for myself at the end of this tournament. But for now it's just looking forward to this tournament. If I get the chance [I'd like] to have a good crack [at Sri Lanka] and hopefully help us progress in this tournament as all teams want to. And then eventually I'd like to play a little bit more [franchise] league cricket at some stage. I played a little bit earlier in my career. I probably haven't had the opportunities recently as much as I'd like, but [I'd like to] get back to playing some cricket hopefully in some turning conditions or force my way back into that.
What do you think Warnie would have told you if he was around?
He used to hammer me about bowling a few more seam-up legbreaks. Given that the game has changed a lot, he was a big believer in that beautiful legbreak as a stock ball.
It's just a connection that I loved. I'm so grateful from the bottom of my heart to have been able to spend time with a hero of mine. He's one of the main reasons I started bowling legspin, and having a couple of years to rub shoulders with him and have a laugh and have a cold one at the end of games and reflect and talk about the game…
There's that saying: never meet your heroes. They might be a little bit different to what you expect. But he was exactly what I thought he'd be and he was so fun, so cool. He had the most amazing cricket brain. So yeah, I mean, like I say, 33, a lot of cricket left in me. But in terms of memories that I have in cricket is to remember that I got a chance to rub shoulders with someone who really made me want to gravitate towards legspin bowling. So yeah, very grateful.