Mihir Hirwani is following in the footsteps of father Narendra Hirwani, former Test spinner and national selector. Mihir is 19 and has decided to be a leg-spinner in his father’s mould.
“May be cricket and leg-spin is in my blood. I’m aware it is a difficult art. It needs tons of hard work,’’ said the junior Hirwani, who is in the city playing A-1 Division three-day league matches for the Evergreen team. His father played 17 Tests for India in the 80s and 90s and is famous for taking 16 wickets on Test debut.
Playing in his third match, Mihir returned figures of 18-0-109-6 in the rain-interrupted drawn match against the formidable Andhra Bank.
“It is my first season here. I came to know about three-day matches being played here through Hyderabad player YS Chaitanya Reddy during one of the NCA camps. Since it is a wet season back home, I thought why not play here as I can get good practice before the main season,’’ he said.
Hailing from Indore, Mihir has represented Madhya Pradesh in under-19 tournaments and is now in the under-22 probables. With the help of Hirwani’s former India teammate Venkatapathy Raju, Mihir got the chance to play in the Hyderabad league. Mihir said he learnt leg-spin from his father. “He is my coach, mentor and guide. I get inspired watching the cassette of his Test debut when he took 16 wickets against West Indies in 1988. We work for four to five hours every day.”
According to Mihir, his father insists that a leg-spinner must work on variations like leg-spin, flipper and googly. “He is happy with my action. A leg-spinner is always under pressure because the batsman will come after you.”
Apart from leg-spin, Mihir has been opening the innings and has been dismissed three times in the 40s. “In the modern game, a cricketer should be good with both bat and the ball, although my priority is leg-spin,” he added.
At the moment, Mihir is focusing on the longer version. Former BCCI secretary and national selector Sanjay Jagdale has told him to play as many three-day matches as he can.
