There is no sight in domestic cricket quite like a leggy ripping through a batting line up, ripping wrongies and leggies through the forward prods of batsmen. Even better than that is when this comes in match-winning fashion, where batsmen don't quite know which way the ball is going to spin - even if they do, they struggle to handle it - and also don't quite know if they should have a dig for some runs or focus on defending a draw. There's only one leggy in Aotearoa who can offer such funk and the return of Ish Sodhi was crucial in giving Northern Districts a narrow win over Otago.

Sodhi was part of the migration back to Plunket Shield cricket last round, although he barely featured with the ball as ND relied on a seam-heavy bowling attack. With the Blackcaps battlers departing the scene like the fair-weathered phonies they are, Sodhi joined Brent Arnel in leading ND's bowling attack.

The first thing that caught my eye was the number of overs Sodhi bowled; 36.5 and 41.5. That's an almighty workload for a leggy and those who scoff at the number of overs a spinner bowls, hasn't rolled their arm over a whole lot in the backyard and definitely not at any decent level of cricket. Getting the revolutions, controlling the flight and generally working through the delivery takes a fair amount of effort and if that ain't tickling your toes; Sodhi conceded 2.04rpo and 2.96rpo.

Restricting runs is lovely when it comes with wickets and as a strike-bowler, Sodhi did the damage with 4w and 5w. Sodhi had Hamish Rutherford chipping a pull shot back to him with Sodhi's extra bounce forcing the error, when Rutherford was set on 67. This came after Sodhi had Shawn Hicks caught on the leg-side as Hicks tried to smoke a wide-ish delivery through the covers, only for the wrongie to catch the inside half of his bat:

Hicks was also set on 35 and Sodhi forced errors from Rutherford who had faced 161 balls and Hicks who had faced 83 balls, imagine how the tail-enders felt?

In the second innings Sodhi took the new-ball with Otago chasing 344 to win. Sodhi again had Rutherfod's number, dipping what appeared to be a wrongie into Rutherford's pads and Sodhi then had Rob Nicol caught at short-leg. Usually, I tend not to celebrate tail-ender wickets too much as it's one thing to take 3w @ 4.50rpo and it's another to know that those 3w were tail-enders and up until that point the bowler was getting touched up. In Sodhi's case, the funk is in the way he steams through a tail and with Brad Wilson's wicket (111) Otago were 204/6 and the game was in the balance.

Sodhi skittled the stumps of Mark Craig, Jacob Duffy and Michael Rae for a combined 7 runs, leaving Anaru Kitchen stranded on 69* and Otago stranded on 318. Here's Sodhi's tail-ender wickets from the game:

I'm not a hunnit percent sure that the delivery on the left (below) is a wrongie and have a feeling it could be a flipper as it hurried Rae (far right above) up, more so than deceiving him. NZC's footage isn't exactly 720p ya know, so it's hard to see what happened when the ball got to Rae, but the point I want to make here is highlighting the difference between a wrongie/flipper and the leg-spinner:

The variation on the left comes out the back of the hand and you can see a lot of the ball, meaning the batsman can't from his viewpoint. Whether Sodhi's fingers run down the ball from the point of the screenshot, or run towards the right determine if it hits the deck and speeds up with more bounce, or hits the deck and spins into the right-hander. The leggie on the right has Sodhi's fingers running down the left of the ball and these nuances take place at the very last milli-second of the delivery.

Who cares whether Sodhi should be in the Blackcaps or not, what concerns me is having Sodhi back in domestic cricket and although we didn't see much of him in the Plunket Shield, it was a lovely taster. Sodhi finished the first stanza with 9w @ 25.55avg/2.62 rpo and this follows on from last season where Sodhi had 40w @ 25.92avg/3.46rpo, meaning that Sodhi slid back into Plunket Shield and served the juice.

Now we move into Ford Trophy cricket, where Sodhi took 14w @ 19.42avg/5.03rpo last season and based on his recent work, we're likely to see the same continuation of Sodhi's dominance this season. Bang an ad if you enjoyed the read to show your support to the Niche Cache and you'll be making a donation, without having to do jack.

Peace and love 27.