It’s easy to fall into the trap of numbers when analysing Manav Suthar, India’s new left-arm spinner. The 24-year-old bowled India to a resounding 165-run win over Sri Lanka in the first Test at Galle with a 10-wicket haul, six of which he took in the second innings in what was a stunning display of his craft.
Having made his Test debut against Afghanistan only a couple of months ago, Suthar grabbed the headlines in Galle with a performance that would have made some of the great left-arm spinners of all time proud to claim as their own.
In just two Test matches, the youngster has now earned 17 wickets at 11.35 with two five-wicket hauls.
There is still a long way to go, but Suthar seems to have what it takes to follow in the footsteps of Anil Kumble, R Ashwin and Harbhajan Singh, India’s modern spin greats, by taking a huge number of wickets in Test cricket.
But his story can never be defined by cold, hard numbers.
Born in Sri Ganganagar, a small town located near the Pakistan border, Suthar had no heroes to look up to in his region when he was taking his baby steps in cricket.
Suthar was raised in the western part of Rajasthan, where the landscape is dominated by the harsh, unforgiving dunes of the Thar Desert.
It’s not the kind of environment that inspires young boys to run, pick up a bat or a ball and practise for long hours.
But Suthar was inspired to become a cricketer by his father, Jagdish Kumar Suthar, a PT teacher who was also a part-time off-spinner in his youth.
Kumar saw the talent in his boy, but he knew talent alone cannot help anyone chase their dreams.
So he instilled the values of hard work and discipline in his son from a very young age as Suthar began to make his mark in school cricket before grabbing the attention of Rajasthan state selectors.
His transition to state age-group teams was brilliant, producing a string of wicket-taking performances before making his senior debut at the age of 20 in 2022.
Unlike most young cricketers who earned instant fame in the Indian Premier League (IPL), Suthar never came close to grabbing the limelight as he continued to toil hard in the unglamorous world of first-class cricket.
There were no cameras zooming in on him, no social media frenzy around his bowling. But what he had was something most other young Indian spinners who thrive in the IPL lack — the old-school style of flighting the ball, beating batters with guile and turn to take wickets.
A throwback to the classical era of spinners, Suthar bamboozled batsmen in domestic red-ball cricket, taking more than 150 wickets at 24.36 in just 33 matches.
This was not a youngster emerging from one of India’s big cities, but the selectors could no longer ignore his domestic performances.
When the moment came, the opportunity to play for India at the highest level, Suthar showed he had both the talent and the temperament to survive the grind of Test cricket.
His turn and control also earned an admirer in Maninder Singh, India’s former left-arm spinner who played 35 Test matches in the 1980s and 1990s.
“When I’m judging a spinner, I’m always seeing how the ball comes out of the hand. He is a class act,” Maninder told The Hindu.
“He is someone who can turn the ball on any kind of surface. It is because he has got a very rhythmic run-up, a nice action, and that release and follow-through. He has got everything that a spinner needs. I can see him playing for India for a long time.”
There was a big hype around Maninder when he broke into the Indian team as a prodigious 17-year-old in 1982, with many pundits hailing him as the new Bishan Singh Bedi, arguably the greatest left-arm spinner in the history of cricket.
Maninder failed to reach the heights of Bedi before falling into depression following his retirement from the game.
We do not yet know how far Suthar, who emerged from the harsh deserts of Rajasthan, can go in his career. But he seems to be a man who will always keep his feet firmly on the ground.
Source: Khaleej Times