The Titans’ unorthodox left-arm leg-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi has been snapped up to join AB de Villiers at Royal Challengers Bangalore.

He takes the place of Samuel Badree, the West Indian leg-spinner who has failed to recover from an injury sustained in the World T20 final.

Shamsi, 26, has good experience of the T20 circus, having played for St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in the Caribbean Premier League. That came after he caught the eye of the touring West Indies in South Africa in 2014-15. In his first spell, he took 11 wickets in seven games at 6.79 runs an over. In the last Ram Slam T20, he picked up nine wickets in 10 games for Titans.

Ironically, Shamsi has a better record in first-class cricket, picking up 272 wickets from 68 matches at an impressive average of 24.90 using a combination of variations including the googly and flipper.

Allan Donald, Royal Challengers’ bowling coach, said he would add variation and ‘mystery’ to the franchise’s attack. ‘Meet our new mysterious spinner,’ Donald said. ‘Look out for a lot of mystery balls in there.’

The Challengers are in need of a fillip, having lost two of their first three games.

Photo: Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix