Manav Suthar served a refresher course of left-arm orthodox spin bowling on day two of the Duleep Trophy fixture between India C and India D in Anantapur.
His run-up to the popping crease is not as gentle as one would expect of a classical left-arm spinner, like a Bishan Singh Bedi, for instance. Suthar has more of a hop and faster strides to the crease. That’s the modern rendition Suthar brings. However, there’s no compromise on the flight and the willingness to pitch it up.
He controlled the two variables at will against India D to bring a flourishing innings crumbling down on its knees in the space of 10 overs. Suthar ended the day with figures of five for 30 in 15 overs after orchestrating a remarkable collapse, reducing India D from 186/4 to 203/8.
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“The best thing is: he gets batters out on defence,” says Vineet Saxena, Suthar’s former coach at Rajasthan. “It’s not like they’re trying to attack him. So, he gets you out on good balls. He has turn, he has bounce. And he just does not stick to bowling-flighted deliveries. He has a mix of pace. These are the good things about him,” he added.
Indeed, on Friday, Suthar’s biggest scalps were two set batters, Devdutt Padikkal and Ricky Bhui, who were looking to defend. He caught the southpaw’s glove with a sharp turn, pitching it in the rough outside the off-stump line. The ball ricocheted off the pad and flew to first slip for a soft dismissal. Bhui was undone by a change of pace as he failed to get his bat in front of his pad in time and was trapped leg before. The fact that Bhui had clobbered him down the ground in the same over would have made the wicket sweeter. Between the two wickets, he deceived K.S. Bharat in flight and got him to miscue his drive to long off.
Mastering flight and varying pace are key to his process, as Dheeraj Sharma, Suthar’s childhood coach from his hometown of Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan remembers.
“He was 12 years old when he came to my academy in around 2013. He used to bat as well, but since he was a left-armer, I thought he could become a good spinner. Early on, his action was not aligning properly. The hand was not moving from as close to the ear as it should have. The finish used to be towards the middle and leg. So, we worked on his footwork in the run-up. I made him a corridor from which he had to release the ball. The moment the body aligned, the bounce and the flight came naturally. If the hand comes from close to the ear, it gets a good loopy trajectory. If it is released at an angle, it travels a little flat,” Dheeraj explains.
Suthar debuted for Rajasthan in the Ranji Trophy in 2022 and has 65 wickets in 14 First Class matches. His breakthrough came in the 2022/23 season, where he ended up as Rajasthan’s leading wicket-taker with 39 scalps. In 2024, Suthar was included in the India A team that hosted England Lions for three non-official Tests. He played just one game but picked up five wickets over the two innings.
Dheeraj feels the reason Suthar took to the longer format naturally was his comfort with the red ball, having played with it for a major part of his childhood. “He represented Rajasthan (at the) Under 16 (level), (and) then eventually (at the) Under 19 (bracket). That is where he really started off with the white ball. But for a greater part of his life, he’s played with the red ball,” he says.
That said, Suthar has taken to the white-ball formats like fish to water. He prised out 10 wickets in five games, the joint second-highest, during the Emerging Asia Cup in 2023. But six of those came in the crunch fixtures—three apiece in the semifinal and final against Pakistan and Bangladesh, respectively. In fact, Saxena got a glimpse of Suthar’s white-ball prowess before he saw him operate with the red ball.
“I saw him the year before last. We had a practice game against Mumbai before the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Shivam Dube was batting, who has a liking for left-arm spinners. Suthar bowled around 11 balls and conceded just seven or eight runs and eventually got him out also,” he says.
“In T20s, he was not able to get those many chances [at Rajasthan] because we had Rahul Chahar and Ravi Bishnoi who were playing for India at the time, and you cannot obviously go with three spinners. But in the Ranji Trophy, he got the chance because Rahul was not available and he (Manav) delivered,” Saxena elaborates. .
Unlike most of his contemporaries, Suthar’s success has come away from the bling of the Premier League (IPL); it’s been paved through the meticulous grind of domestic cricket. That in turn has worked wonders for his confidence in a way that the IPL might not have, Dheeraj feels.
“A bowler matures only when he bowls a lot. Spot bowling gets you the basic skill. But the idea to bowl according to the match situation, according to the batter’s strengths and weaknesses, will come only with match experience. How to adjust length and what areas to target comes from game time.
“The biggest change is that his confidence has gone up. It’s one thing to say, ‘Okay, I can try it’. But the moment you tell him to do something, his first reaction is, ‘ Yeh main kar dunga’ (I will do this). I think that’s because of playing so much,” says Dheeraj.
On the back of his merit in the domestic circuit, the IPL contract also came his way, with the Gujarat Titans signing him during the 2024 auction. But both Dheeraj and Saxena expect Suthar to not stop here and march towards his original goal.
“He’s been given the chance to play red ball matches for India A, against South Africa and England. So, somewhere the selectors feel he can make it. Maybe sometime in the next one, two or three years. But he has to keep working,” Dheeraj points out.
Saxena is bolder in his pronouncement. “I see him playing for India. This Duleep Trophy, the best 60 red ball players are playing for India. So, picking a fifer here speaks for itself.
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