Smriti Mandhana's (Smriti Mandhana Wicket) brilliant batting in India's 3-0 win in the 3 ODI series against South Africa (343 runs) was discussed as much as a new page added to her profile in the series – bowling.

In the second ODI, that is, after more than 10 years from her international debut and in her 223rd international, she bowled for the first time – 2 overs in which she also took a wicket. Did you notice a specialty of her bowling – this number 18 player of India bowls inswing from the 'wrong foot'. And the interesting thing is that another similarity with her favorite cricketer Virat Kohli came out – not only do both have jersey number 18, Virat also bowls from the 'wrong foot'.

Wrong foot delivery cannot go unnoticed – awkward and random. Rahul Dravid once described Virat Kohli as a 'wrong foot inswinging threat'.

What kind of bowling style is this because it is not mentioned anywhere in cricket coaching books.

Generally, the bowlers' right foot is behind in their run-up – Kohli and Smriti's left foot is behind in their run-up. Hence, 'wrong foot' got associated with their bowling. It is written in the cricket dictionary that when a bowler uses his front foot in service – such a bowler is said to be playing with the wrong foot.

Sometimes the run-up is such that it ends on the wrong foot but it is also mentioned that some bowlers, to deceive the batsman, change the foot used at the end of the delivery – generally spinners do this. By the way, these 'wrong foot' bowlers are so few that experts do not count them separately but include them in the bowlers with 'strange action'. It is very surprising to watch the bowling of those handful bowlers who show this very unique method and are wrong foot bowlers. Still, such bowlers are not in the news.

Colin Croft of West Indies was one such bowler – his deceptive run-up was very famous. Another such famous bowler is Chris Harris of New Zealand – a medium pace bowler who actually looked like he was wobbling in his run-up when bowling off the wrong foot. Jeff Thompson of Australia and Lance Cairns of New Zealand were also like this. Thompson had an amazing bowling action and in the 1970s, this Australian player was considered one of the fastest bowlers in the world. Cairns was also fast but he was one of those 'wrong foot' bowlers who did not know that there was something wrong with his bowling style.

One more special name- South Africa's Mike Proctor. He became famous as a bowler who took advantage of this style to improve his bowling. He was a bowler of Lance Cairns style. One very funny thing is that there was no question of laughing after watching any of these bowlers bowling, but everyone starts laughing after watching Virat Kohli's bowling action- this is probably because of his 'wrong foot' in the delivery stride, as well as turning his head at a strange angle. This is the reason why his bowling becomes a favorite material of memes and jokes on social media. In his famous interview with Gaurav Kapoor in the YouTube show 'Breakfast with Champions', Virat said- God has given him a wrong blow by giving him such a strange action. And what's more- when he tries to improve his action by trying spin in the nets- even then his foot lands wrong.

Sohail Tanvir was also seen in IPL – he was also like this. Everyone called his action strange because he is a left-handed bowler and still bowls with the 'wrong foot'. His style is like Proctor and Harris. Pakistani fast bowler Tanvir was very successful especially in T20 due to his action – he played in many T20 leagues and also took 54 T20 International wickets at an average of 26.92. He was the first 'Purple Cap' winner in the 2008 season of IPL.

It is important to mention that when he bowled left-arm finger spin to Wasim Jaffer and Sachin Tendulkar in the Eden Gardens Test in the 2007 tour in frustration, he accidentally bowled it with his right foot. This style did not benefit Tanvir in any way. Another interesting thing about his action – while bowling the ball, he used to rotate his hand twice and this quality earned him the nickname of 'Fan' in Pakistan cricket.

Rashid Khan was one such person – not the one from Afghanistan, but the one from Pakistan. It is even said there that Tanvir adopted the wrong style while copying his action. Rashid had dismissed Viv Richards on 0 in his first ODI (Lahore – December 1980). Rashid says that he did not even realise his action for a long time. Once when he saw his action in the news on TV, he realised that he had bowled with the wrong foot. In those days, even coaches could not catch such a mistake in the action.

Have you noticed that all the bowlers mentioned here are from after 1970. So did no one bowl with the 'wrong foot' before that? Historians believe that even then there must have been such bowlers but no one noticed. Despite this statement, there is one name who became very famous for this action and surprisingly, no one mentions this quality while mentioning him. The first and most famous name in international cricket with such an action was Lala Amarnath who played 24 test matches for India between 1933 and 1952. He was a classical style right-handed batsman and as a bowler, he used to bowl with the wrong foot.

In the 1946 Lord's Test, he was close to a hat-trick with his leg-cutter as well as a fast inswinger and when he dismissed Len Hutton and Denis Compton as well as Cyril Washbrook and Wally Hammond (5-118 in 57 overs), after the series was over, a prominent cricket journalist of that time, Raymond Robertson-Glasgow, wrote that in his eyes the biggest memory of the series was Lala ji's bowling at Lord's. In England, it was even mentioned that his bowling should be banned because of this 'wrong foot' action, but no one could tell which cricket law he was breaking. It was also written that when he used to bowl, everyone used to look at his feet more than his action. Wisden wrote with surprise, praising him – 'Just three steps, after running slowly, he bowled with the wrong foot at such an amazing length that no mistake could be found – especially in-swingers.

Smriti Mandhana refreshed the memories of this 'strange' community.