Nice jogging run-up, smooth simple action, nice gentle medium pace are not the qualities considered good enough to take wickets at the international level these days. In a world where bowling fast means being express, its hard to imagine a fellow with a speed in early 80s and being able to take wickets. Yet despite all this, Mohammad Asif seems unfazed by the drama. With his fellow pace men bowling well into late 80s and mid 90s he is pretty much happy to contain himself and focus only on the job in hand. Putting the opposition under pressure and getting them out. There is no announced drama or expected aggression when he comes to bowl. There is always only one thing in the air and that is the excitement which his bowling brings. Swinging surface, seaming surface, turning wicket, batting wicket, it does not matter to him. He is just focused on working out the batsmen and weaving the magic with his subtle wrists. His mouth is shut but his wrists talk. You hardly seem him sledge or utter a word other than that of a disappointment when a catch is dropped or an edge is missed, and that too, rarely. He is humble in his defeat and silent in victory. The way he works out the opposition batsmen is impeccable. If he bowls an outswinging volley and gets hit for a four, often just passes a smile for he knows that he has his batsmen where he wants them to be. A few more of those and the batsmen think that they have him figured out. What they don’t realize is they are being setup. The loose balls are actually a web being weaved around them and then it comes so predictably yet swiftly. Mostly it is that vicious off cutter that either rips out one of the stumps of traps the batsmen plumb in-front. And so often there is no celebration from Asif. Just a meager smile as if to tell the batsman what a fool he had been in thinking he had Asif figured out. As if to say you still need practice my friend. And all this so silently.
Perhaps the best compliment that can be given to Asif was incidentally given by Asif himself. Around the start of 2004 when Asif played a solitary game for Pakistan and was then dropped due to non performance, the late coach Bob Woolmer suggested that he need not worry and practice more to which Asif replied “Don’t worry coach, my time will come”. And boy has it come so silently.
By: Razi Bilal Khan
Long before the time of money and dance girls and aggressive style of play, there was an age when cricket used to be only a game but what a game it was. There were Graces and Bradmans and Huttons and Larwoods. They too were, after all, humans. As players, their game had style, persona and attraction. As humans they were fragile yet sober and gentlemen. All their rivalries started on the cricket field and ended there. Yet even in those rivalries they never forgot to respect their opposition. It was a time when cricketers had to work full time to earn their living. Even in those times, when it was a difficult proposition to play, they maintained their humility. They had to give up their bread and butter to be on the field. They respected their opponents. There never used to scenes like a bowler threatening to throw ball back to the batsmen or throwing it. You never used to see a fielder intimidating a batsman with aggressive throws or verbal jabs. It used to be a simple contest between bat and ball and the rest was left to be. People loved it.
Then came the era of professional cricket and with that came stupidity, a lunatic misplacement of human feelings called aggression and loss of respect. Money should have brought humbleness and greatness but it brought everything but these things. Slowly, players started forgetting what heritage of the game they had been passed on and what would they pass on. Talents make men humble, yet with the advent of professional cricket, talent became a curse. It was hard to find a good cricketer among good players. Egos became everything and to date, still are. All this was branded as hard cricket. Some took this to heart and went so far as to prove that cricket is very hard. Umpires were considered as mere spectators on the field. Rules were left for the coaches and managers to read. Cricket fields became battle fields. Players became warriors. Equipment became weapons. You either found a player hitting someone with a bat or others defending themselves from a ball attack. Pointing and abusing became a norm. People loved it too.
Now is the era of neither professional cricket nor amateur one. Its purely an era of money dictating a game that has its roots connected to cricket. Nowadays, to schedule a series, a board has to take consent of their marketing partners. Game formats are designed to accommodate them. Players look more of walking advertisement agents rather than cricketers. A cricket field resembles a huge mall rather than a playing field. And all this has been branded as the advent of game or the moving forward of the game or taking the game into new era. Makes me wonder, is it really cricket or something like it.
By Razi Bilal
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