Enough – or as much as can be said about something so random andintangibly spectacular – has been said about Shahid Afridi’s batting.Of his bowling, which is more consistent but less dramatic than hisbatting, less is said and understandably so
Osman Samiuddin26-May-2005
Shahid Afridi: his bowling has a lot to do with his enhanced stature within the Pakistan side © AFP
Enough – or as much as can be said about something so random andintangibly spectacular – has been said about Shahid Afridi’s batting.Of his bowling, which is more consistent but less dramatic than hisbatting, less is said and understandably so. But with 38 wickets sinceJune last year – in 29 ODIs and four in the second ODI against the WestIndies, maybe it warrants a little more attention.Actually, forget how many wickets he has taken. As against the WestIndies, the ambience his bowling operates and succeeds within is thekey to his bowling. Arguably, with the tragic-comic run-outs ofRamnaresh Sarwan and Shiv Chanderpaul, the match might have been over.But Runako Morton, a flurry of hyperactive fidgets and movement, waskeeping West Indies interested, winding up the situation, making thematch taut.In nine balls, Afridi fiddled with it and finished it. First Morton wasbeaten by everything; pace, length and flight. A couple of balls later,Dwayne Bravo was deceived by flight and length too, but even more by alate, lazy, lilting drift in the trajectory of the ball. Wavell Hinds’wicket was the cleverest, Afridi exploiting the left-hander’s migrationto off by bowling him round his legs.It isn’t an isolated incident either, for this is the precisely the typeof realm in which his bowling often comes to life. In the VB Seriesfinals against Australia earlier this year, Australia through AndrewSymonds and Damien Martyn were making light, pleasant work of a heavy,difficult pitch, threatening a huge total. Afridi had been hustling andbustling deliveries through till then. But two in quick succession hegave loop to and both resulted in refreshingly traditional leg-spindismissals; Martyn was stumped driving and Darren Lehmann caught behind(so he was reverse-sweeping). Australia’s momentum vanished and atarget that threatened became instantly manageable.Against India at Eden Gardens last year, during the Platinum jubileegame, he ended an ominous VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag collaboration,finding the edge of the former and bowling the latter and keeping Indiaunder 300. He has even unveiled this habit in a Test, at Bangalore,when batsmen weren’t pressured to attack him, when he still brokepartnerships, when he still picked up key wickets, invariably soonafter coming on. And ultimately, with his dismissal of Tendulkar, hesealed it. Just like that, innocuously, he does it.In a sense, it isn’t entirely bizarre that he has been successful. Hedid, after all, begin his career and get picked for Pakistan as alegspin replacement for Mushtaq Ahmed. But is it really legspin hebowls? His action suggests that he bowls it, the culmination of a lazy,unplanned run-up. In some strange way, his action carries the barest,yet inexplicable trace of Anil Kumble’s.He also, as legspinners do, has requisite variety, although even thatisn’t of a conventional sort. His stock legbreak doesn’t usually turnthat much; occasionally as its’ owner, it does misbehave, generallywhen he holds it back and gives it some air. There is a traditionalback of the hand googly that curves rather than spins in, but the moredangerous alternative is the offspinner, delivered with a traditionalgrip almost as if he can’t be bothered with the deception of the backof hand. And then, of course, there is the faster one, whoseeffectiveness is unquestioned but execution is the subject of frenziedand, strangely, thus far private debate. The pace of it suggests thathe got into the wrong line, but when it touches 80 mph, he can vary thespeed of his bowling as he did against the West Indies, within sixballs, by as much as 16 mph. For what its worth, Michael Holdingemphatically concluded that the action was clean on TV.Crucially, he has good control. He may still suffer with his lineoccasionally but his length is the more difficult to pick and put away.Hitting him straight, aerial or otherwise, becomes difficult at hispace, but also the awkward, fullish length he finds. And someintelligent field placings – he rarely bowls without three men in closeproximity in the point region – means that his economy-rate over thelast year has mirrored that of his career – a very respectable 4.64runs per over.Additionally, he goes through his overs as he does his daily life, at an unnaturally hurried rate. He is relentless, aching for the ball in hishand after every delivery, barely pausing for breath at the top of hismark and bounding in, relentless. It’s almost like he’s trying to foolthe batsmen, a grand subterfuge, whereby batsmen don’t realize that heis bowling and before you know it, he’s through his ten, gone forbarely any runs and with wickets to boot.Of course, he can be taken apart given the right flatness of surface and a spirit of batsmenship similar to his own. Against India recently, hestruggled on dead pitches and against his own kin in Virender Sehwag and,to a lesser degree, Mahendra Dhoni. But as Kamran Abbasi pointed out inthe May issue of , because he has rediscovered his bowling, hisoriginal calling in life, it has helped him to adjust to his enforced,and ostensibly more destructive role with the bat. With it, he nowoccupies a place at the core – a well-populated rather than sparse,individualistic center – of this Pakistan team,and much of its recentprogress.
