If making hay when the sun shines was a person, it would be Sneh Rana. As she walks into the press conference room after a gruelling day under the hot Chennai late-summer sun, she requests in jest, “Please aaj questions chota rakna” (Please keep the questions short today). But questions to Sneh, during media obligations and on the field, have never been short and she’s learnt to deal with life and cricket’s probing tendencies with wisdom and an endearing smile.
On Saturday, she was the pick of the bowlers, taking three of the four South African wickets to fall in the one-off Test at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.
Her first spell got underway right before lunch, with skipper Harmanpreet predictably allowing her to get a feel of the new ball. She struck right after the start of the second session, rattling skipper Laura Wolvaardt with fuller balls in the stump line, threatening the pads. Wolvaardt survived one LBW appeal but finally succumbed to Sneh’s wiles at the end of the over, unable to read a ball that stayed low and into the stumps and copped it on her pads.
Anneke Bosch then took matters into her own hands when she held forte for 73 balls. She audaciously went for the boundary opportunities too. Sneh did everything she could with her variations and line to draw out a false shot or an edge to the attacking fields skipper Harmanpreet Kaur made available for her. She even bore being smacked over the ropes.
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In the 31st over, she took the attack to Bosch, striking her on the arm with a ball turning in. Bosch fell off the very next ball to a similar back-of-the-length delivery. Bosch expected the ball to turn but it straightened, taking a thick edge and going straight to an alert Deepti Sharma in first slip.
She then sent back Delmi Tucker without allowing her to add to the score, drawing a shot out of the South African which swiftly went to Richa Ghosh behind the stumps. There were a few chances put down (like that of Nadine de Klerk in the dying minutes of the game or Sune Luus in the second session) which if taken would have handed Sneh a milestone at a venue which embraces spinner triumphs with open arms.
“I’d say Laura’s wicket was more satisfactory…” Sneh revealed after the day’s play. “...because I had manifested it for a long time. Finally getting that wicket was more satisfying for me.”
All the spin love aside, Chennai’s red soil strip, despite visible cracking, offered little assistance to the spinners for most of the day. Deepti and Sneh managed to make the ball turn more so due to their exaggerated efforts to get some revs on the ball. Barring some fluctuating bounce in small phases, the track had no real demons in it to rattle the Proteas.
Much like Deepti, the vastly experienced Sneh had her plans in place.
“The challenge really was that there wasn’t a lot of turn early on. As a spinner, you had to use your fingers a lot in that phase. We had to use a harder grip. But as the wicket wore out, we got to see more bounce on the wicket and there was more turn later on,” Sneh shrugged.
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The 30-year-old’s imperious showing was a tale of two halves. Her control and manufactured turn made the Proteas cautious. However, as the ball got harder to work through and fields with more open spaces were handed to her, the Proteas started finding ways to get to the ropes. She finished the day having bowled the most overs for India with an enviable economy rate of 3.05, second only to Deepti (among those who bowled at least 10 overs or more).
“We’d watched the videos of their main batters, the top five, and planned accordingly. We were all focused on our stock ball,” she said.
Amol Muzumdar’s red ball acumen came through in the field settings Harmanpreet dished out for the batters early on. At one point, Shafali Verma was stationed at short mid-on, right between the non-striker and the stumps, to prevent the runs coming down the ground. Shubha Satheesh was a forward short-leg staple while Harmanpreet kept giving her spinners circular protection.
“Fielding is such an aspect in Test cricket where you can actually dominate the opposition, with your fielding positions,” Sneh said, commending the role of aggressive fields in providing reprieves on a mildly frustrating day.
Sneh returns to the national side after six months, having last featured in an ODI against Australia. However, her Test credentials - evidenced by performances against England in 2021 (four wickets for 131 runs and a match-saving unbeaten 80) and 2023 (a match haul of 7/119) - make her a sure starter in this format.
Sneh is a thinking spinner who gives the captain the luxury of a bowler who can independently strategise proactively rather than simply follow laid-out blueprints. However, in the white ball formats, spinners like Shreyanka Patil, Asha Sobhana Joy have seen her drop down the pecking order. However, come Tests and Sneh is hard to look past. While that irreplaceability is a testament to her skillset and smarts, the typecasting as a Test player can often frustrate.
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“Confidence toh humesha hi rehta hai,” she said as she tried to explain how she kept herself motivated through the quiet spells between games.
“I’ve tried to continue from where I left off (against Australia) and tried to play with the same focus. More than magic, it took hard work here. After performing well against Australia which is one of the best teams in the world right now, the challenge is for you to deliver the same over and over again. That’s all I had going through my mind today,” she added.
The Indian administration’s continued favour of red ball cricket has helped her stay in the zone.
“Even the multi-day InterZonal that was brought back by the BCCI after the Women’s Premier League, was also quite encouraging. A player has to find a way to stay motivated. You can be thrown a challenge at any time and one has to be on our mark always.”
Chepauk’s strip heads into a third day with more wear and tear predicted. Sneh is confident to use the uncertainties of a morning session to her and India’s advantage as she hopes to squash South Africa’s refusal to submit early.
While Sneh’s name perhaps doesn’t occupy a post-it note on India’s T20I drawing board, with a home ODI World Cup coming up next year, she won’t mind making a statement with her consistent frugality and adaptability in crunch situations.
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