TimesofIndia.com in Mullanpur: “Kya kamaal gend nikalti hai iske haath se” (There is magic in his hands every time the ball leaves them). This is the unanimous observation about Manav Suthar from everyone who has seen him up close, be it teammates, coaches, selectors or even India’s current Test skipper Shubman Gill.“In one of the U-23 games, one of the close-in fielders told me that you can hear the sound of the revs when he bowls. He puts so many revs on the ball, which is quite unreal in this day and age of cricket,” Anshu Jain, Rajasthan’s current head coach, under whom Suthar played at the U-19 and U-23 levels, tells TimesofIndia.com after the left-arm spinner bagged a six-wicket haul on debut. “This is natural. He is unique as well. No current cricketer will tell you that he wants to play Test cricket for India and that the IPL is not his ultimate aim. He told me this when he was still in his teens. It’s remarkable,” adds Jain.The 23-year-old, who was given the nod ahead of Harsh Dubey for the one-off Test against Afghanistan, became only the tenth Indian bowler and seventh Indian spinner to claim a five-wicket haul on Test debut.When the Gujarat Titans roped in Suthar in 2024, he impressed everyone with his bowling. The one who was particularly impressed by his craft was captain Shubman Gill. Although the Rajasthan spinner has only played a handful of matches for the Titans, he was told to be ready for an India call-up.Multiple sources tracking Suthar’s development have maintained that he was tipped to make his Test debut against the West Indies last year at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The selectors and team management wanted to play him ahead of Ravindra Jadeja, but the veteran all-rounder earned a lifeline after scoring 516 runs in England.“Suthar is someone who will get you wickets even on flat tracks. He has so much skill that he doesn’t need much from the surface. Accuracy, revs, the right pace – it all makes him very sharp. Selectors have been very excited to give him a go and conversations around him began during the tour of England. He was close to getting a maiden call-up for the West Indies home Tests but Jadeja’s outings with the bat in England earned him another lifeline,” explains a source tracking developments.
After India lost the home series against South Africa, the team management decided against preparing raging turners. They wanted to play on traditional sub-continent tracks and needed skill in the spin department to do the job.During two days of bowling under the sweltering heat in New Mullanpur, Suthar showed why he was considered special by so many. Be it his diagonal run-up, the way he angles across the umpire, the guile, drift, dip, flight, revs and, most importantly, the lengths he hits—everything suggested that India may have found a dependable spinner. At least in home conditions where they want to play on sporting pitches, where the ball starts turning from Day 3 rather than matches ending inside nine sessions. And then the perfect “tappa”.Suthar is not just a one-trick pony. He mixes his pace exceptionally well. His average speed was 89.90 kmph, his quicker deliveries touched close to 95 kmph and the slower ones hovered in the mid-80s, all while maintaining impeccable length. He bowled 72 deliveries on a good length, which accounted for 55 per cent of the balls he bowled. Another 40 per cent were pitched full. Out of the 132 deliveries he bowled, he hardly gave the Afghanistan batters an inch, which explains his miserly figures of 22-10-33-6.And hitting the spot is something he learnt from his father, Jagdeesh Suthar, a physical education teacher at a private school in Sri Ganganagar.“I was an off-spinner myself and when he used to bowl for hours with a tennis ball, I told him that if he wanted to become a good spinner, he needed to bowl at one spot over and over again,” Jagdeesh told this website at the stadium after his son was handed the debut cap by Kuldeep Yadav.Suthar spoke at length to broadcasters about “spot bowling” at the end of play on Saturday.“My only focus was how consistently I could bowl in one spot,” he said.When asked about his skillset and how he developed such consistency, he replied: “Jab maine khelna shuru kiya, subah se lekar shaam tak bas main spot bowling karta tha” (When I started out, my focus was heavily on spot bowling. As much as possible, I would practise spot bowling in the morning and evening).Suthar first caught everyone’s attention after a stellar domestic season in 2022-23, during which he bagged 90 wickets in a year. He was Rajasthan’s leading wicket-taker in the Ranji Trophy with 39 wickets in six matches. Prior to that, he had claimed 14 wickets in seven U-25 one-day matches and then picked up 37 wickets in the CK Nayudu Trophy.“After Rajasthan failed to qualify for the knockouts, he called me and asked, ‘Sir, U-25 khel sakta hun? Thoda red-ball se aur overs ho jayenge’ (Can I come and play U-25 cricket so that I can get more overs under my belt with the red ball?),” recalls Anshu.But his exploits went unnoticed and no IPL franchise picked him. A disappointed Suthar called his childhood coach Dheeraj Sharma and said: “Sir, kya fayada itne wickets lene ka?” (What is the point of taking so many wickets?)Sharma scolded his ward and sternly asked him whether his aim was to play in the IPL or for India. The answer came in the softest tone: “Sir, India.”Thereafter, Suthar was picked by Gujarat Titans as a net bowler and, as they say, the rest is history.The sample size is still small and the opposition relatively weak, but Suthar is certainly a breath of fresh air in India’s attempt to rebuild a home fortress that has been breached in recent years.
