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As children, we all were fascinated by the splendour of our heroes.
Whether it be the film stars with their larger-than-life stories, the athletes who challenged and surpassed the limits of the human body, or the people around us who became our role models without us knowing.
For me and many of my peers of the current generation, our role models were the fast bowlers we saw on television.
Fast bowlers, as role models do, made us imitate them. To run thorough a batsman with your pace, make him follow the swing in the air, to get it to seam of the pitch and to be able to bowl those bouncers and yorkers at will; it was what one wanted in life back then.
Thus inspired, I tried all I could to learn and master these tricks of fast bowling. There was, however a tiny little problem obstructing my path into the Hall of Fame with Wasim – I was ten and all I had was a tennis ball.
As an ardent observer of the game back then, I quickly picked up on the seam technique, the position of the fingers, the wrist shape and other so-called technicalities. I held the tennis ball the right way – with two fingers on the seam next to my thumb, which supports it from the outside.
I tried my best to land the ball on the seam. I succeeded sometimes while mostly, I was off the mark. But I noticed that my seam position – whether it was upright or cross-seam – didn’t seem to have any effect on the batsman whatsoever. He was still clobbering me for sixes.
I soon came upon a fact that changed my childhood irrevocably, the tennis or rubber ball does not swing!
As I also kept on trying to copy Muttiah Muralitharan by attempting to spin it using all of my ten fingers, I also recognised that one could spin the ball at good pace with just the right amount of wrist work.
And then, with this cheat code in my hand, I went on to become the best swing bowler the world had ever seen!
Just kidding, in the two days after that I went ahead and joined a cricket academy. A cricket academy mostly makes you unlearn and run, instead of the usual dictum of unlearn and relearn.
As you might have predicted, I soon forgot all about this little ‘mischief’ of mine, focusing on holding the seam, the grip of the ball and how to throw it down in the best possible way.
And obviously, I forgot all about those menacing cutters.
Years after that, I saw Mustafizur Rahman and I tried to revisit those days. To see those fast angling cutters; the four fingers just sweeping across the ball, leaving batsman batsmen shell-shocked one after the other. It gives me immense pleasure.
The success of an unconventional bowler like Mustafizur is no mean feat and credit must be given to the coaching staff and the players, particularly Anamul Haque who dared him to bowl his fast cutters. Also the role of captain Mashrafe Mortaza, who supported and encouraged Mustafizur from his early days, must be acknowledged.
We all know the burdens of over coaching – especially me. While coaching and training at a young age does have its benefits; it sometimes curbs the talents of naturally-gifted players.
It is very heartening to see Mustafizur do what he does and succeed, even at the international level. Being a left handed bowler, I do rather selfishly bask in his glory.
The critic in me is still surprised by the fact that it has been over a year since Mustafizur first came on the international stage, but still it doesn’t seem that he is close to being sorted out.
While we have seen Steven Smith scoring some runs against him in an IPL game, Rishabh Pant did the same in another game; these have been exceptions to the rule rather than the rule itself.
But the child in me wants Mustafizur to succeed, to keep innovating and dominate the cricketing world for years to come so I can say “I knew he would be great back in 2016.”
This certainly is going to an exciting time for everyone around, especially for people who enjoy fast bowling. Let’s see what the youngster from Bangladesh has in store for us.
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