Intikhab Alam wants Shadab Khan to develop a good flipper

Intikhab Alam, the former Pakistan captain and coach, believes young leg-spinner Shadab Khan who has made a name for himself in his short career is a wonderful talent and as he goes along in his career and adds a few more variations to his bowling, he will be even more lethal than he currently is.

For Intikhab, one thing that Shadab is lacking is a really good flipper which is such an important tool in a leg spinner’s armoury in modern-day cricket where lbw decisions are given in favour of the bowler far more frequently in comparison to the nineties or the eighties.

“You see with the rules changing so much, now if you bowl within the stumps and if you hit (the pads), you get a wicket. It was tough in our days to get a decision,” said Intikhab in an interview with Cricbuzz.

Shadab and Yasir are not conventional leggies

Intikhab is of the opinion that neither Shadab nor Yasir Shah, who has been a Test specialist for Pakistan, are like those conventional leg spinners of old days who used to flight the ball and beat the batsmen with loop.

Intikhab reckons that limited-overs cricket has become so important these days that the bowlers want to get into limited-overs teams first and mould their bowling in a way that suits limited-overs cricket rather than Test.

“Both (Shadab and Yasir) are not great flighters of the ball. Yasir is quicker through the air. Shadab is actually able to turn the ball more than Yasir because of his action, but both of them are not old fashioned type of leg spinners and that’s because of limited-overs Cricket. All wants to get into ODI teams these days,” said Intikhab who himself also plied the trade of leg spin during his playing says.

Warne the best of all time

On being asked who he rates as the best leggie of all time, Intikhab went with Shane Warne because of his overall stats and record. But he talked up his compatriot Abdul Qadir as well and stressed that there was not much difference between Warne and Qadir in terms of skill.

“Statistically Warne was the best, but Qadir wasn’t far away from Warne,” Intikhab remarked.