The most exciting legspinner in the women’s game didn’t get where she has by chopping and changing
Sruthi Ravindranath04-Mar-2025″I keep it simple” is a cliché many cricketers, specifically bowlers, use, perhaps to keep themselves from revealing too much about their craft. For Alana King, you get the sense it’s not that.Running in with a stock legspinner’s grip, snapping her wrist to get enough rip on the ball, pitching it on leg stump and waiting for the magic to happen – that’s what King has been doing for as long as she can remember, and she believes she can bring that consistency and simplicity of approach into her T20 game and be successful as well. It is a method that has led to her delivering what has been called “the ball of the century”, made her instrumental in decimating England 16-0 in the Ashes with 20 wickets in four games, and produced a Test match spell where almost every ball could go into the highlights reel.It was a quick transition from the Ashes, before the emotions of winning had fully sunk in, to T20. King landed in India to play the WPL, where she represents UP Warriorz, in February. Weeks have gone by, but she still can’t stop thinking about that ripping legbreak to England’s Sophia Dunkley in the Ashes Test, and she admits she’s watched the clip a “handful of times”.Related
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“It’s hard not to [think about it], to be honest,” she says. “I think playing a Test match at the MCG was pretty iconic in itself. That ball was something that came out of my hand really nicely and something that you can watch on replay and really enjoy. You don’t really enjoy it in the moment. I was just happy that I got the wicket, but [then] I watched it a few times post-game, it was something special. Hopefully I can keep replicating that and bowl many more balls like that in my career.”I know my team-mates probably give me stick – they reckon I’ve probably watched it a hundred times. That’s not the case. I can appreciate it watching it a couple of times, and yeah, it brings a big smile to my face.”The one big challenge for King, moving as she did from Test cricket to T20 in the WPL, is to keep up with the pace of the game. “You’ve maybe got less time to think about your plans and to react in T20,” she says. “In ODI cricket you’ve got a bit more time to get into a rhythm, into your groove, and in Test cricket, you’ve got even longer time. You can stick with a plan a lot longer than one or two overs. In T20, you’ve got to be ahead of the game and the battle of what [batters] are trying to do. So I just think it’s fast-tracking your process of thinking and your plans.”I don’t really change too much. I know that a good length is going to be a good length in any format. But I’ve just got to be a bit sharper with my mind and my plans.”More where that came from: the killer ball to Sophia Dunkley in the Ashes Test earlier this year was one of nine wickets King took in that match•Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesKing is also learning how to navigate the challenges of bowling in India. “It’s not a lot of fun [as a bowler], given the boundary sizes and the flatter wickets,” she says. “But I love the challenge. I think it’s a good place to really hone your skills. You’ve got to be on the money from ball one because they’re quite batter-friendly wickets and everything’s more in [the batters’] favour. [It’s about] just trying to find stuff that’s going to be in your favour and trying to make sure you hit a good length.”Length is always going to be key no matter what format you play in, so just trying to work out what’s going to be more effective on these wickets, when the ball is sliding on a little bit with less turn. It’s how you can adapt as quick as you can but not lose sight of the strength that you have.”By getting chances to play in different grounds during the WPL, King and her Australia team-mates are also gaining knowledge of conditions in India, where the ODI World Cup is scheduled to be played later this year.”In every ground we’ve played at, you learn a bit more,” she says. “If there’s World Cup games here later on, if it’s in Gujarat or Bangalore or Lucknow, you take a little information and you keep it in your back pocket for when you’re going to be here and playing for your country. No doubt we’ve got a lot of Aussies [at the WPL], so there’ll be a lot of information collated collectively, which will be good. We’ll all put it to use when the time comes.”King was rewarded for her consistency in the WBBL this season, where she was the top wicket-taker in the tournament, with 20 in ten games. Along with it came a recall into the Australia T20I side after two years out of it, for the Ashes. She credits her comeback to Becky Grundy, her coach at Western Australia, and Beau Casson, assistant coach at her WBBL side, Perth Scorchers.Ecstasy in orange and black: King took 5 for 16 in a match against Perth Scorchers this WBBL season, going on to become the tournament’s top wicket-taker•Getty ImagesShe believes her T20 game took off after moving to Scorchers, where she bowled in the powerplay and also played on bouncy tracks at the WACA, which helped add another dimension to her skill. “I think it probably helped evolve my game,” she says. “Legspin’s obviously going to be a pretty hard match-up to bowl in the powerplay. By just bowling tough overs, I want to challenge myself and get better at that. I want to be as versatile as I can for this Australian team and if I can experiment in the WBBL with the backing of the Scorchers, I think it’s putting me in good stead.”Not having a bag of variations, especially in T20s, can put a spinner behind, but King is backing her basics to keep her going in the format. “I’ve enjoyed the challenge, and no doubt it’s not always going to be linear,” she says. “You’re going to have days that you know are not going to go your way. But that’s cricket, that’s T20 cricket and legspin bowling.And it’s not like she has no variations at all. King points out that bowling at the WACA has helped her refine her topspinner to be more effective. “It’s been really nice to get an extra bit of bounce and I’m not an overly tall person, so any extra bounce in the wicket is always going to help me.”Keeping up with the ever-evolving nature of T20 isn’t just about the technical aspects for her. A big part of it is picking up information about the opposition with the help of local players while playing in the WPL, WBBL and Women’s Hundred. “It’s just trying to be a bit more proactive to different batters,” she says. “Especially the domestic Indian players [in the WPL] – obviously you don’t know a lot about them, so [you’re] trying to get that information as quick as you can from your team-mates or from the other local players in your team.”Just developing tactically and working with some incredible internationals alongside helps. I love picking people’s brains and that’s how I learn, just having organic conversations at training or on the bus and at the game.”One of those players she has regular cricket conversations with is England left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone, a team-mate at Warriorz. King may have put Ecclestone’s side through a gruelling time in the Ashes but it was all “put aside quickly” when they arrived at the WPL, she says.A cricket buff by her own description, King spends a lot of time talking about and watching cricket in the off season. She also says she has learned a lot about tactics and technique from listening to commentary during live games. One commentator she looked forward to listening to specifically was her idol, Shane Warne. “I loved how he talked about the game,” she says. “He was so good tactically and I learned a lot from him just from commentating in games.Other favourites she enjoys listening to include Ian Smith, Harsha Bhogle and Ian Bishop. “I just love the way they speak and how they talk about the game. The female commentators like Lisa Sthalekar and Mel Jones are people who all played the game, who I grew up watching as well. They always have a different aspect and a different perspective on how they see the game. I listen to a lot of cricket. That’s how I learned the game and developed a few more plans.”It was only fitting that King got that acclaimed wicket of Dunkley bowling from the Shane Warne Stand end at the MCG, nearly mirroring Warne’s own big-spinning ball of the century in the 1993 Ashes to Mike Gatting. It was her first time bowling from that end at the MCG since it was named for Warne. “To do it in my baggy green and in whites as well as playing a Test match, it was pretty iconic. It’s something that I’ve probably reflected a little bit more on [since] – pretty iconic. Hopefully he was smiling down, enjoying it, and hopefully he was there in spirit as well. It was nice to do it, and especially at a ground that I grew up going to and watching him play [at].”That may have been one of King’s dream scenarios ticked off the list, but she also hopes to soon fulfil her dad’s dream of watching her play in Chennai, where he and King’s mother come from.”Chennai will always be a special part of me,” she says. “I’ll always have soft spot for going back there. Hopefully there’s a World Cup game later on at Chepauk Stadium. I think that will be one of dad’s dreams – to go watch a World Cup game [there] and hopefully I’m playing in that one.”