Alana King: Born to parents who hail from Chennai, Australian leg spinner creates new World Cup record

The seven-time champions, unsurprisingly, finished on top of the league table and set up a semifinal against Harmanpreet Kaur’s India in Navi Mumbai, while South Africa will face England in Guwahati, in a repeat of the 2017 lineup. And it will mean King will return to the venue where she fulfilled a long-time dream of playing in front of extended family at the end of 2022.

King grew up in Melbourne, Australia. Her parents, Leroy and Sharon, were born in Chennai and then migrated to Melbourne in the 1980s. As most Aussie kids do, she just wanted to be just outside playing “all the sports under the sun” and was constantly trying to find ways to play sports both in and outside of school. “My cricket career started in the backyard, which quickly moved to the front yard after me and my brother broke too many pot plants and a couple of windows as well. My brother initially got me out because I was bowling to him all the time, but the roles quickly reversed as I started to get him a fair bit,” King had told cricket.com.au.

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In the matches against Bangladesh (10-4-18-2) and England (10-1-20-1), King was proving unplayable as she extracted significant turn from a pitch where other spinners couldn’t as much. But wickets proved elusive. That would all change immediately on Saturday as she entered the attack in the 12th over and accounted for two huge names in Sune Luus and Marizanne Kapp.

She’d go on to take two more wickets in the 16th over and rip through the South African middle order, her figures reading a ridiculous 4/0 at that point. When she got one to turn sharply and beat the outside edge of Nadine de Klerk for the last wicket, she created history as the first bowler to pick up 7 wickets in an women’s ODI World Cup match, and also registered the best-ever figures for Australia in this format, bettering her head coach Shelley Nitschke’s 7/24 in 2005 and current teammate Ellyse Perry’s 7/22 in 2019.

The run-chase should’ve been a mere formality, but in Alyssa Healy’s continued absence, Phoebe Litchfield and Perry fell early. But replacement opener Georgia Voll and Beth Mooney steadied the ship to power Australia to a comfortable win. For South Africa, the league stage ended as it began, as they were bowled out by England in the opener for 69.

Inspired by the original King of spin

Her representative cricket experience started with the under-12s primary school state team. She went on to represent Victoria in the under 15s and under 18s and received her first Victorian state cap from her mentor and friend, Kristen Beams. King has been to India on multiple family trips. Before the five-match T20I series that was played in Navi Mumbai and Mumbai, King told AAP: “A few family friends might be making the trip,” King told AAP. “There are a few in Mumbai. Hopefully, I get to see them and they get to see me play in the flesh. That will be cool. When I do speak to them, it is like nothing has changed, and that could be a few months apart. And that would be cool for them to see me play cricket. am sure WhatsApp will start blowing up close to the game.”

King has been inspired by the king of leg spin, the late Shane Warne, and during the multi-format Ashes series earlier this year, she got to check off another cool item in her to-do list in the pink-ball Test at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground. “Bowling from the Shane Warne stand end … it’s the first time I’ve ever done it, playing here (for the first time) since the stand’s been named after him. Pretty nostalgic. He’s obviously taken plenty of poles at the MCG for fun, so all I can say is, hopefully he’s smiling down and having a couple of beers and enjoying a few ripping past the outside edge,” she had said then.

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Breaking down her spell on Saturday, former India keeper Dinesh Karthik explained how she made use of the pitch: “It was an absolute gold standard in how to bowl wrist spin. She got the ball to drift, and most importantly, she used the pitch to her advantage.

There were some turned quite a bit while some didn’t turn as much, as the ball hit the grassy parts on the pitch and skidded straight. There were some bald patches in the pitch and some grassy ones, and she used that to her advantage. It was wonderful to see someone target the stumps so consistently.”

King’s remarkable form has seen her become the spin-bowling mainstay in this strong Australian squad and she said focussing on being more consistent with her stock ball – the ripping leg-spinner – has been one of the key factors. “It’s a special performance from Kingy, so really happy for her to do that obviously, in a World Cup. Absolutely wrapped with how she’s bowled the last couple of games, to be fair,” Nitschke said on Saturday. “She’s been fantastic, she’s a big game player, and when she’s up and about, she brings a lot of energy to the team. She obviously burst onto the scene a couple of years ago and had a really strong Ashes for us and has continued to perform particularly in this format.”

King’s sensational returns in ODIs can be summed up perfectly by this stat: she has the best strike rate in the history of women’s ODIs (25.6 balls per wicket) among bowlers to have taken at least 50 wickets. On Thursday in Navi Mumbai, she will represent Australia’s biggest threat against India in the semifinal.

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