Close your eyes and tell me who do you see as the most penetrative spin bowler in the ongoing Champions Trophy. Rashid Khan or Kuldeep Yadav? No sir. Axar Patel almost bagged a hat-trick against Bangladesh, but it's not him either.
Then it's gotta be Mitchell Santner? Good shout. But, believe it or not, it's his New Zealand team-mate Michael Bracewell who has emerged as the highest wicket-taker, as well as the most economical bowler, among spinners so far in this competition. The offspin-bowling allrounder has picked up five wickets in two innings in Pakistan at an average of 12.80 and economy rate of 3.20, including career-best figures of 4 for 26 against Bangladesh, which confirmed New Zealand's spot in the semi-finals. A staggering 85 of his 120 balls have been dots.
Bracewell, whose nickname is the 'Beast', might appear like an innocuous trundler, but there's beauty in his subtle variations. When there wasn't much turn on offer in Karachi and Rawalpindi, Bracewell used the drift to his advantage and created an illusion of turn, something he often does at his home ground, the Basin Reserve, in Wellington. Once the ball became older and the Rawalpindi surface got slower, Bracewell cut his pace, and found more turn and grip. He managed to do all of this while keeping the stumps in play.
"You've got to vary your pace on these wickets which don't offer you a lot of assistance," Bracewell said after the victory against Bangladesh. "As a bowling group, we like to vary our pace quite a lot, so it's something we've done for a long time, and we play on quite flat wickets back in New Zealand that don't offer a lot of turn. So you got to try and beat batsmen in the air, and it's a skill we've learnt over a number of years."
Bracewell's control and subtle variations prompted his captain Santner into bowling the offspinner ahead of himself against both Pakistan and Bangladesh. Against Bangladesh, Bracewell's control was so remarkable that he bowled an uninterrupted ten-over spell.
It's even more remarkable, considering Bracewell took to full-time offspin only six years ago, after he had moved from Otago to Wellington. Bracewell had played two Under-19 World Cups for New Zealand, and spent more than six years with Otago as a batter and back-up wicketkeeper.
Bracewell felt that his career was stagnating at Otago, so he decided to move to the capital in search of new opportunities in 2017. Two years later, he had a proper crack at offspin, and once Jeetan Patel retired, Bracewell stepped into his role and reinvented himself as a spin-bowling allrounder.
In his first first-class fixture as a bowler for Wellington in the four-day Plunket Shield in 2019, Bracewell came away with the wicket of Henry Nicholls in each innings. Those dismissals made Lance Dry, the Wellington spin-bowling coach, believe that Bracewell could turn into a viable long-term spin-bowling option for his side.
"Michael's is an interesting story," Dry tells ESPNcricinfo. "When he came to Wellington, I was the captain of his club, and so we got him bowling for us in club cricket in terms of introducing him to bowling offspin there. And from there, it's just progressed.
"Two [three] innings after getting Henry Nicholls out in both innings, he picked up his first five-for in first-class cricket against Auckland, and it grew out of that. When Jeets [Jeetan Patel] finished up, we didn't have an offspin option at that point. That's when Michael started to bring a serious option is all three formats."
Bracewell is blessed with physical attributes - he's tall, and has large hands which enable him to grip the ball - but his technical skills needed some polishing.
"Michael is disciplined, and works very hard," Dry says. "There was a number of winters that we spent bowling quite a lot together where he'd have one technical focus, and it would probably last for three or four months, in terms of just working on that one simple thing. I remember one was when he wanted to get his front knee a lot higher in his delivery stride so that he could then get it under his head, and up and over, and all those sorts of cliches. But he spent an enormous amount of time getting that just right. So, he's very disciplined."
Bracewell is particularly adept at harnessing the wind and generating drift, which makes his offbreak more potent, especially in helpful conditions. "Michael is obviously used to bowling into the wind at the Basin [Reserve]," Dry says. "Also, at club cricket in Wellington, he spent a lot of time bowling into the wind, and obviously training was also outdoors. I think his ability to get the drift he gets is because of the work he puts on the ball.
"He does impart a lot of spin on the ball, and he does change his arm position a lot in terms of his adjustment to find out where he needs to be releasing the ball in order to be able to obtain that drift. He's a very skilful bowler."
Bracewell may not have that drift to work with in Dubai against a right-hander heavy India side whose batters have a variety of methods to counter spin, including taking trips down the pitch and playing the sweep or reverse sweep. Bracewell's instincts as a batter, though, will serve him well as a bowler across conditions, according to Dry.
"Michael understands what he doesn't like to face from an offspin perspective," Dry says. "So that gives him a little bit of an advantage from knowing where to bowl and how to approach different matters. And especially with the batting mindset he has, which is pretty aggressive, and he's a hard striker of the ball.
"So, it gives him that bit of knowledge as well, how to contain that type of player. How he bowls to himself would be an interesting conversation because I think it would show the intelligence he has around how he can manage the more aggressive player."
Bracewell was earmarked to play a big role for New Zealand in the 2023 ODI World Cup in India, but an Achilles injury, which needed surgery, relegated him to the sidelines. Then, when he was back for the 2024 T20 World Cup, New Zealand suffered an early exit in the West Indies. New Zealand have flipped the script in this Champions Trophy, thanks in no small part to keeper-batter-turned-offspinner Bracewell.
While the sample size is fairly small - Bracewell has played only 55 white-ball internationals for New Zealand so far - his economy rates of 4.84 in ODIs and 6.93 in T20Is are particularly impressive.
"Michael's record as an offspinner is outstanding in international cricket at a time when offspin is one of the most targeted forms of bowling by all batsmen these days," Dry says. "I know the sample size is small, but right now if we used [R] Ashwin as a comparison, his one-day bowling average is better than Ashwin's, his T20 bowling average I think is on par, and his RPO (runs per over) in both formats is slightly better.
"Michael is going under-fives [runs an over] in one-day cricket, and under-sevens in T20. Whilst he's not a young man… but from a bowling perspective, he's still got a lot of good years of offspin bowling ahead of him."
India won't underestimate Bracewell's batting either. In January 2023, he clattered 140 off 78 balls against an attack comprising Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj and Kuldeep to stage a stunning comeback from 131 for 6 in a chase of 350 in Hyderabad. Despite wickets tumbling around him, Bracewell nearly pulled off that chase.
A fitter, stronger Bracewell is ready to meet India again, in Dubai on Sunday.
Stats as of February 27, 2025 before the Afghanistan vs Australia match