Marvellous Mustafizur winds back the clock to leave Chepauk in awe

A Rahman weaving his magic and leaving Chennai and the world in awe is something we have seen many times before. A. R. Rahman, the "Mozart of Madras", was born in that part of India and went on to become one of the world's most acclaimed musicians. But it was the other Rahman, the one from Bangladesh, who made everyone in Chennai marvel at his amazing skills with the white Kookaburra in hand.

It's not that Mustafizur Rahman bowled for the first time in Chennai in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) on Monday. He had six IPL 2024 wickets at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chepauk leading up to the game against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at an economy rate of 7.4 and it included a 4-29 against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), his best figures in the tournament. 

But if we draw a parallel between cricket and music, the spell against RCB would be a chartbusting dance number and the one against KKR (2-22) would be a classical melodious track one would love to listen to on loop. 

When the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) roped in Mustafizur despite availability issues, Ravichandran Ashwin, a man who knows the Chepauk pitch like the back of his hand, said, "Mustafizur's cutters on that pitch are too scary to even think of". Ahead of the tournament, CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan also shared the same sentiment. 

Mustafizur, fondly called "The Fizz", was excellent in both their home games but the pitches on both occasions were nowhere near the typical slow and low Chennai wicket. Quite surprisingly, it aided the fast bowlers, just like it did in the Bangladesh-New Zealand game in the World Cup. It didn't bring the likes of Ravindra Jadeja and Maheesh Theekshana into play.

But as the ball got a bit softer on Monday, there was clearly more assistance for the spinners and it inevitably brought Mustafizur's USP - the cutter - into play. 

His first two overs were fantastic as well, with the left-arm seamer executing the plan perfectly against KKR's powerplay-maximiser Sunil Narine with short balls. But it was the second half of the spell that took everyone back to 2015.

Nine years ago, an unheralded 19-year-old medium fast bowler shot to prominence after bowling Bangladesh to a maiden ODI series victory over India. He flummoxed a host of Indian batters with his cutters which were hard to decode. 

The skill came naturally to Mustafizur, who has extremely flexible wrists. His cutter has seen many ups and downs, the returns have largely diminished for Bangladesh but on Monday, he showed that his cutters are still difficult to get away when he gets it right. 

Identifying the slowish nature of the wicket, Mustafizur and Tushar Deshpande - CSK's death bowlers - bowled 16 slower balls out of 24 in between overs 17 to 20. But they were up against Andre Russell, arguably the most fearsome ball-striker in the world and also in form.

Mustafizur bowled an over for the ages as he kept on going slow and wide, outside Russell's hitting arc. 

He could have got Russell out in that 18th over had MS Dhoni not dropped the catch. It was incredibly frustrating for Russell, Mustafizur's teammate at Comilla Victorians in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), as he kept on getting beaten by the wide line and the lack of pace.

"Where does he [Russell] hit it? You think about a bowler bowling away from your eyeline and the ball is gonna stop in the pitch. It's gonna stick on the surface and go further away. Where does he go? I wasn't brilliant in trigonometry but the angle which was produced.. It's difficult to hit over that area [extra cover]," Former England captain Michael Vaughan told Cricbuzz. 

He started off the next over - the 20th - with the wicket of Shreyas Iyer with another slower ball as the KKR captain failed to get on top of the off-cutter. In came Mitchell Starc, a man capable of using the long handle. But by that time Mustafizur had switched his unplayable mode on. The southpaw was spectacularly beaten first up as the ball deviated a long way after pitching, leaving Starc in disbelief.

Mustafizur removed fellow left-arm seamer Starc to regain the purple cap after strangling him with his cutters. The last over yielded only two runs (one off the bat).

"He's been great with his change-ups and was very effective on this wicket. He was amazing," said teammate Ravindra Jadeja, who himself got out four times in five innings in international cricket to Mustafizur.

Mustafizur undid Jadeja with the typical slower  ball on his ODI debut to complete the five-wicket haul and the spell on Monday reminded many of his exploits early in his career. 

"Fizz reminded me of his early days in international cricket and the IPL. He has shown a lot of character and quietly done his job," Robin Uthappa, who played a fair amount of cricket alongside and against Mustafizur, told Jio Cinema. 

It wasn't the first time Mustafizur got the upper hand on the big-hitting Russell. In his debut IPL season in 2016 for Sunrisers Hyderabad, the left-arm seamer had Russell on the floor with a toe-crushing yorker. In the IPL, Russell now strikes at only 111 against Mustafizur.

"The Fizz is looking like he is winding back the clock when he was in orange [Hyderabad]. Bowling superbly & if pitches in the #IPL are going to be like that, then @ChennaiIPL are looking good," former Australia cricketer Lisa Sthalekar wrote on X.

Mustafizur's skill is unique because of his supple wrists and the revs he puts on the ball by twisting the left wrist makes him a difficult bowler to read although it's been almost a decade since his international debut.

"It's because of an incredible wrist position he gets into," former New Zealand cricketer and now commentator Simon Doull told Cricbuzz on Monday. "Because he does that, it loops, it spins. It's difficult to read. It loops, dips, turns, it's hard to play. It's hard enough for a top-order player let alone for guys coming in at six, seven or eight trying to whack."

During his time with the Rajasthan Royals, Mustafizur was called "The left-handed Muralitharan" by Alan Wilkins on air and later he was nicknamed "Murali-fizur" by the franchise because of his unique ability to extract incredible amounts of spin off the surface.

"It's like Murali, isn't it?" said Vaughan after the KKR game. "Just like him, he puts all his wrists, shoulders into it."

Mustafizur's form in the BPL 2024 wasn't very convincing as he went for 9.3 runs per over. He was expensive in all three T20Is against Sri Lanka. But in the ongoing IPL that has been highly rewarding for the batters, he has an economy rate of 8.0 after four matches and has not been too erratic. 

Mustafizur is getting to work with Eric Simons and DJ Bravo, who himself had a superb dipping slower ball, at CSK and fans back home will hope he returns a better bowler and redeems himself in Bangladesh colours.