Harmeet Singh 2.0 - remodelled action, faster through the air and newly-developed yorker

Harmeet Singh set tongues wagging when he burst onto the scene as a teenager. Cricket pundits couldn't stop marveling over the fluidity of his action. It was more of an easy glide, like a surfer riding a perfect wave. His action today is totally unrecognizable. He has abdicated that action and remolded that into something that would better assist him in his T20 game, like a software company deprecating their legacy systems and deploying new smart systems optimum to its new-age users.

"I don't play red-ball cricket now. I load up in a more conventional way now. The action is a bit more round arm now, which basically allows me to alter my lengths and explore different release points" said Harmeet after the Seattle Orcas topped the league stage in MLC.

An important cog in the Orcas wheel, Harmeet Singh has bowled 16 overs at an economy of 6.93 at the MLC, out of which 10 of them have been in the second half of the innings. Bowling the difficult overs, Harmeet now has gotten the number of T20 behemoths like Kieron Pollard, Andre Russel, Tim David, and Aaron Finch. At the MLC, it has been a tremendous step up in the quality of cricket he has had to acclimatize to, as he hardly broke a sweat in bullying batsmen in the US domestic scene.

"There's no question about the difference in quality here. Some of those wickets were in my wishlist. But I've played a lot of cricket in Bombay where batsmen easily toy even the better spinners around, I've grown up with SKY (Suryakumar Yadav) and Shreyas Iyer and bowling at Rohit Sharma in the nets. You can't be predictable against these guys. I have been varying my pace, length and line to good effect. If you be predictable, top batsmen will leave you in the dust. It's all about inducing a mishit. If you show them your repertoire even the top batsmen even start respecting you"

Harmeet acknowledged the role of senior pro and fellow left-arm spinner, Imad Wasim, in the side. The Orcas along with the Super Kings have been the only sides to dock oppositions under 150 in 3 outings out of 5. With Imad providing the early incisions with the new ball and Harmeet foxing them in the later half of the innings, the pressure exerted by the pair has been relentless

He is a champion bowler. Fortunate to learn from him. We are different though. He bowls quicker through the air and I bowl a bit slow. When I come to bowl if there's an international pro, he tells his strengths so that tells me if I want to get him out forcing him on the front foot or backfoot, whether I should bowl slow or fast"

"For Pollard, he asked me not to bowl slow, I just bowled quicker ones to him, one of it slid through, it got big on him, and he miscued it. Against Unicorns, for Finch and Stoinis, he asked me not to pitch it up to them, as they wait on their front foot, eyeing the straight boundary. I never bowled full against them apart from the yorkers which I have developed after coming to America. Rest of the deliveries were all back of the length to push them back and push them wide. His presence helps in gaining clarity of thought and helps in executing under pressure"

Harmeet wears his heart on his sleeves. Not one to shy away from a verbal battle, he had a tip off with Tim David in the game against New York, he subsequently got written up 20% of his match fees for the sendoff.

"If I'm on the field and someone is trying to be verbal and if I don't give it back, I feel I'm backing away. I didn't say anything to David then but when I won the battle, I had my last laugh. If you start a fire in me, it helps me, in most cases. My actions were a bit aggressive, but I didn't verbally abuse him"

At 31 years of age, and 14 years into his professional cricket journey, one gets a feeling, Harmeet is now turning his wishlist into bucketlist.