Sharad Pawar's father-in-law, Sadashiv Shinde, was a leg-spinner who played seven Tests for India and was famous for bowling two types of googlies, one of which was unorthodox. Sujit Mukherjee, in Playing for India, described Shinde's unorthodox wrong'un thus: "Ripped off the top of the third finger, it hastened unexpectedly off the pitch. Its tendency to pitch short nullified its efficacy as secret weapon but was practically unplayable when properly pitched." Shinde died in 1955, of typhoid, at the age of 32.

Sixty-four years later, and just 10 days short of turning 80, Shinde's son-in-law has been landing his wrong'uns on the right spot. He has, over the last two months, deceived the Enforcement Directorate into miscuing its drive; got an overconfident Devendra Fadnavis stumped, and clean bowled Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah before they could gather the support of 40 MLAs to form a Bharatiya Janata Party government in Maharashtra.