Meet the latest addition to England’s pace attack: off-spinner Dan Mousley.
The Warwickshire man may technically be a slow bowler but he is an extremely quick one – the fastest spinner on average since ball-tracking began in 2006, according to CricViz and Cricinfo.
Mousley averages 68mph and bowled West Indies captain Rovman Powell with a 72mph yorker in Barbados on Sunday as England took a 2-0 lead in the T20I series with three games to play.
The 23-year-old’s darted-in deliveries were also on display in a stunning showcase of death bowling in The Hundred this summer, for Birmingham Phoenix against Trent Rockets.
Mousley claimed three wickets across the final 10 balls, including bowling Lewis Gregory and Rashid Khan with his pacey yorkers, and conceded only three runs in the process.
‘Unique Mousley gives us a point of difference’
The youngster’s unconventional style, as well how he performed in a clutch moment to win a game for his side, would surely have piqued England’s interest.
Now he is castling international captains and bowling the final over of innings for his country.
England skipper Jos Buttler said after Mousley made Powell and Romario Shepherd his first international wickets: “I don’t know where he’s got it from.
“Everyone will see him now and come up with plans. But his character is one of his biggest attributes and to deliver a unique skill and give us a point of difference is fantastic.”
Mousley took two wickets in the second T20 against West indies, dismissing Rovman Powell and Romario Shepherd
Mousley said: “It’s a different skill, it’s probably not traditional off-spin but it’s one of those things which I’ve just learnt to bring into my favour. It’s okay to be different as a bowler.
“If you stand still in T20 cricket, you get found out. It’s trying to stay ahead of the curve and just try to learn as much as you possibly can from different games.
“They say off-spinners can’t bowl at right-handers but I don’t believe in that. I made it clear at Warwickshire I didn’t believe in that and then ended up getting a bit of confidence. If you don’t back yourself, no one will.”
‘Bethell and I bounce ideas off each other’
England appear to back him, too, viewing the Midlander as a three-dimensional cricketer.
Mousley struck 57 off 70 balls in the third and final ODI against West Indies
Buttler added: “He just seems like he is someone who always wants the ball in hand or wants to be involved in the hot spots in the field and, obviously, he’s a real competitor with the bat.”
Mousley is a batting all-rounder in first-class cricket with 11 half-centuries across his 34 matches, while he amassed 385 runs for Birmingham Bears in the Vitality Blast this summer before notching his first England fifty in the final ODI against West Indies.
That innings of 57 came four days after Warwickshire colleague, great mate and fellow spin-bowling all-rounder Jacob Bethell hit his maiden ODI half-century: “When [Jacob] got fifty in the ODI, afterwards I was like ‘OK, that’s up to me to get one now’.
“We’ve grown up together. We drag each other around at Edgbaston and just try to get better and use each other to bounce ideas off.”
Bethell, who has since struck a maiden T20 international fifty in his native Barbados, in front of friends, family and quite the fan club, seems destined to play a major role for England going forward across all formats, having also been named in the Test squad for the three-match tour of New Zealand that begins on November 28.
It’s hard to figure out exactly where Mousley fits in when his country are at full white-ball strength – there are seemingly all-rounders everywhere you look – but perhaps a gap has opened up following the international retirement of Warwickshire team-mate Moeen Ali.
The two are similar players – left-handed batters who bowl off-breaks. The difference is their bowling speeds, with Moeen a regulation spinner and Mousley delivering relative thunderbolts.