The diminishing art of leg spin bowling in cricket is no more a worry. The breed is back. And it is in the shortest format of the game that they have stolen the limelight from the heavy willows. Leg-spin bowling is the flavour of VIVO IPL 2017.

One of its exponents, Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Samuel Badree, claimed the first hat-trick of the season against Mumbai Indians in Bengaluru to assure that the skill is here not just to stay but also to redeem the faith in the art. Badree joined Rashid Khan and Imran Tahir to ensure the art of leg-spin bowling flourishes in the T20 format.

We at iplt20.com caught up with the leggie from the Caribbean at the end of the match. Excerpts:

First game of the season and first hat-trick of this season. That is a dream start?

Today is Good Friday and it is a Good Friday for me too. It isn’t a good day for the team though as we ended up on the losing side. It is special to get a hat-trick, but I would have preferred to be on the other end of the result tonight.

Can you run us through each of your wickets?

I feel Parthiv did not get under the ball enough as he tried to lift it over short extra cover, but found Gayle at the catching position. I was a bit fortunate to get Mitch [McClenaghan] out toa full toss and Rohit’s wicket was a good ball; he tried to come up and the ball found the gap between the bat and pad and hit the stumps. It was a really, really, good feeling.

Rohit’s was your hat-trick ball. Tell us about the ‘Googly’.

I decided to bowl a bit slower and see what happens. I knew that he was aware of me being on a hat-trick ball and would play a defensive shot, so I could have afforded to be a little bit slower and luckily it worked in my favour tonight.

Leg-spinners have been the flavour of the season – Rashid Khan, Imran Tahir and now you. Your thoughts on them.

You know the variety the leg-spinners bring to the game. The ability to spin the ball both ways and then bring in that slider delivery. YuzvendraChahal has been doing a great job for RCB as well. I do think we have a part to play in T20 cricket, whether it be at the top of the innings, in the middle or even at the back end. These guys have been proven performers and once again they are doing it through the IPL.

Did you get a chance to bowl to Virat and AB de Villiers in the nets? Who among the duo plays you better?

Both of them (smiles). They both are class players. Both, Virat and AB on their day can take apart any bowler. I can’t single out any one of them as both of them are equally dangerous.

With Virat coming back in the team, was it a timely boost that the team needed?

I think both, Virat and AB after coming back from injury and playing the kind of innings that they have - AB in the last game and Virat today, shows the kind of talent these guys possess.It gives an entire team that confidence of having someone up in the order who can stabilise and bat through and then later on change gears and score quickly. And then we have Chris [Gayle]. Our batting is our strength, unfortunately, it didn’t click for us tonight as we were a bit short with the bat.But having said that, there are a lot of games to go and we’re backing these guys to come back stronger.