Self-taught, ambitious: Leg-spinner Tanveer Sangha’s plans for the Sheffield Shield and beyond

The skill: Leg-spin.

The masters: Anil Kumble, and of course, Shane Warne.

Life has come fast at Sangha since those early steps learning the trade in Sydney’s south west but YouTube tutorials remain a part of the process, according to his NSW captain Kurtis Patterson.

“One of the beauties of him is that he is self-taught, he has a great appetite for learning,” Patterson says.

“When he wants to learn something new he just hops on YouTube and watches videos of other bowlers and goes down to his local park and tries to bring it into his game. I love that about him.”

Like so many spinners, Sangha turned to the craft when he realised dreams of being a quick would never be fulfilled.

He tried his hand at off-spin first, but it didn’t take his fancy. His fingers weren’t big enough. He enjoyed wrist spin, but wrist spin was hard. In his own words: “I was very bad at it.”

It wasn’t until the under 15s, that he finally made his local representative team. When he took on Pakistan for Australia’s under 16s, he realised he might genuinely be good at it.

By 17 he had a Big Bash League contract with Sydney Thunder. By 19 he was touring the world with Australia’s T20I squad. He didn’t play a game but he learnt plenty from the likes of Adam Zampa, Ashton Agar and Mitchell Swepson.

Now 20, Sangha is making a name for himself in the Sheffield Shield and his ambitions are lofty.

“I just really want to show that I can take wickets in red ball cricket as well as I can in white ball cricket,” he says. “I want to put my hand up for both and be a three format player. In every opportunity I get I want to take wickets in every game.

“I want to prove myself to be part of the best spinners in Australia, and in the future the world.”

Five games into his first-class career, Sangha has taken 14 wickets at 26.14, with his fifth game ended prematurely by concussion. It’s a small sample size but a very encouraging one, suggesting he has what it takes.

Despite his inexperience at the level, there has been little need for guidance from Patterson, who estimates Sangha was ready to play for NSW two years ago.

“It’s just that we’ve got a guy called Nathan Lyon that is around a fair bit for NSW who has probably kept him out of the side,” he says.

“He’s been ready to go for a couple of years now. It hasn’t been a surprise at all how minimal help he has needed. I see my role there being to create the best environment for him to feel comfortable and for him to be able to feel himself. If we can do that, the sky‘s the limit for him.”

Sangha’s game is built as much on what he can do with his brain as what he’s capable of with ball in hand. So far he has known the right strings to pull, the right buttons to press to win his battles. He works his opponents over, with Patterson keeping his input to a minimum. There’s a suggestion here or there but Sangha is firmly the master of his own domain, which has impressed the Blues veteran.

“Nowhere near as much [guidance on the field] as you would expect a 20-year-old would need,” Patterson says. “That’s one of the great things about him. He knows what he wants and he is really firm with what he wants with fields and plans for different batters.

“That’s a great position to be in as a young player. He is going to keep learning and he is going to keep adapting to what’s in front of him the more and more cricket he plays. It’s a great place to start from.”

Right now, Sangha’s is a game of suffocation. As long as he is building up pressure, he is confident wickets will come.

“In T20s you have four overs and a lot more is going on so fast. Batters are trying to hit you for a boundary every ball or looking for runs every ball,” the spinner says.

“In red-ball it’s a lot harder to get them out because they’re more patient, they take their time, they don’t need to rush or hit boundaries.

“They wait for the bowler to make a mistake which I find is the good part. I feel like I’m in control of them.

“If I’m not giving away runs and I’m consistently bowling dot balls or creating little half chances, if I’m not letting the scoreboard tick, I’m making it very boring for them, they can’t get that bad ball, it builds a lot of pressure which irritates and annoys them.”

That accuracy Sangha talks of would be impressive for a leggie of any age. Economies don’t make tongues wag but when you can bowl as tightly as Sangha does – he’s gone at just 2.32 an over in first-class cricket, 3.42 in List A and 7.52 in T20s – and turn a leg break like he does you become quite the prospect.

Sangha has more variations than fingers, but it’s his mastery of his stock ball that he takes most pride from and what spin-bowling history suggests his career will be built on. The best spinners have always built their game on perfecting a dangerous stock delivery.

“My leg spinner, that’s my greatest asset in my cricket abilities: to bowl my leg spinner and to turn it with good control over it.”

Across his decade in professional cricket, Patterson cannot remember anything like it from a youngster.

“I can’t really recall any wrist spinner that has come in and been able to do what he has done. He is a very composed young man,” Patterson says.

“He really has got essentially finger spin control and he’s a wrist spinner and that is such a rarity. When we’re playing in Sydney on turning wickets you don’t need huge ripping spinners of the ball who only land it three in six balls, you need guys with control who can hit rough and expose batters’ weaknesses.”

With that accuracy comes confidence and with that confidence comes the aggression required to make it to the top as a wrist-spinner.

“His control from a bowling point of view is his number one asset, but his mindset when he is bowling is his number one strength. He really is a better bowler when the batters are coming after him.

“He knows where to put it, he knows where batters aren’t as strong when they’re trying to hit him, and that’s a terrific place to be. Most young spinners would feel that when they are put under pressure, to go back into their shell and bowl really defensively. He’s got a lot of skills, he doesn’t go defensive at all.”

The next step is being as effective when batters go into their shell. Patterson is confident it is a question of when rather than if Sangha takes that step.

“He is already an exceptional bowler when batters are coming hard at him and different things like that, hence why he has been in Australian white ball squads already.

“His next piece of development is getting more exposure in red ball cricket and making that shift from not just adapting to what batters are doing but actually for him to really control games. Because he’s got the ability to and not a lot of bowlers have that.

“Particularly when we get to day three, day four on spinning wickets around the country, I think his big learning growth is then really grabbing the ball and controlling the game and doing what he wants.

“We all know that will inevitably come with him playing more games of cricket. He’s two or three (four) games into his Shield career now so he has got a lot of learning to do and he will continuously keep getting better which is going to be really exciting.”

Exciting for NSW, Australia and Sangha alike.