On the evening of the second day of the Kolkata Test against India, the South African spinner Simon Harmer called an Indian, Umesh Patwal. He wanted to know how to bat the next day – should he reverse sweep or play the conventional, and which balls he can leave alone on that treacherous pitch. Why was the South African spinner calling an Indian hand? A few hours before that call, Harmer had credited Patwal in the press conference, hailing him for turnaround in his spin-bowling career.
Patwal laughs as he recalls that phone call. “You see he is in such a space with his bowling that we don’t discuss that much. So, it was about his batting!” Patwal tells The Indian Express. But it’s the bowling story that fascinates us – how those ten days spent in Mumbai in 2016 completely turned around his bowling and why was Patwal chosen by Harmer. Patwal is Assam’s U-23 squad’s coach these days and says he felt “proud” when Harmer credited him for success. So what happened in Mumbai a few years back?
It turns out much of it came down to Harmer’s thumb. And palm. Before that, came the tears. “The first two days were very frustrating for him because whatever notion he had about spin bowling, it was completely the opposite of what I was trying to teach him,” Patwal chuckles now. Back then, he was the spin coach of the Global Cricket School, where South Africa had sent Harmer along with the other 10-12 spinners for a camp for the A team in 2012. “We had other spinners like Dane Piedt as well. Nicky Boje (spin bowling coach in that camp) told a few things about me to Harmer. He had come on the last day, all the way from Zimbabwe, just to have a session. He was pretty impressed with me.” Happy with what he experienced in those two days, Harmer kept trying to come back and would eventually find time and way to come in 2016.
South Africa’s Simon Harmer with Umesh Patwal (second from right) and their friends. (Photo courtesy Umesh Patwal)
Within the first two days, it was clear to Harmer that he had to unlearn everything he knew about spin bowling. Patwal realised that Harmer was using his palm more than needed and would grip the ball too hard. He made him use the thumb more instead.
“If you are an off-spinner, without changing the action, you should be able to bowl as much spin as you want, depending on the firmness on the thumb. That took him a couple of years to understand,” Patwal says. But the work began in those 10 days in Mumbai. Patwal’s theory is that with the thumb on the ball, you get as much as of your grip on the surface area of the ball – not just the fingers.
“Without changing the action at all, you can bowl the arm ball. You can bowl a less turn ball, you can use a more turn ball with a lot of bounce and pace. So, that took him more time to understand,” he said.
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The leap in the improvement , says Patwal, came in Abu Dhabi later in an Essex pre-season camp. Harmer, who joined Essex in 2017, has taken 1000 first class wickets.
South Africa off-spinner Simon Harmer in action in the Kolkata Test against India at Eden Gardens. (Express Photo by Partha Paul)
“The biggest advantage he has is that he has a massive palm. Look at his hand. The ball is easier to control when you have a big palm. With him, it was again important to know that if he had to put any strain on the muscles, that was not a good bowling action. So, to get that rhythm, he knows from which angle in the shoulder you need to release the delivery.” So keep that arm loose and relaxed, thumb on the seam, and the massive palms cusping the ball.
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“With his action, it is more on the upper arm. That’s why you can see that he can get more side spin on the ball. Because he is taller and got more upright action,” Patwal says.
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In Mumbai and later in Abu Dhabi, Harmer learnt how to bowl on different pitches.
“Because every wicket has a different pace. Depending on the pace of the wicket, you need to adjust your stock ball. A lot of times, you just bowl at the same pace, and you won’t get results on different wickets. That’s what he was very keen on.”
As much as those days in Mumbai weren’t easy, those ten evenings were fun. Patwal remembers a very curious youngster who wanted to know and soak up as much of the local culture as possible.
“We would go out and have food on the local streets. He would record the way the food was made on the streets. He was open to understanding how the culture worked in India and not just about cricket. He taught me the word “Umami”, which is a Japanese word for good taste,” Patwal says. It’s a word for ‘savoury deliciousness’. “He was very keen on food, experiencing all the local food.”
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Nearly a decade later, Harmer would return to India and have the Indian batsmen for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This time around, the cricketing world gasped at his umami.
