Ironically, the talk show itself is titled ‘Babar versus Saud: Who is the next captain of Pakistan?’
But it’s only five minutes into the 12-minute slot, after an intense debate and lament about pitches in Pakistan losing their character, that Shakeel swirls into the panel. On Express News channel, former captain Aamir Sohail strikes a philosophical note: “Only if you have cried for something, you will know about its value when you finally achieve it.” Salman Butt takes a dig at the selection process: “In other countries, you play Tests first and then ODIs. In Pakistan, you play T20s and the ODIs. Ajeeb hain yeh.”
He has been advocating picking Shakeel for some time. “If you are a good Test player, you could be good in other formats too. Look at Virat, Rahul, Babar, they are all good Test players and good in other formats too.”
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Shakeel has excited Pakistan, even though he is only six innings old, spread across two years, in this format. Much of it owes to Pakistan’s flimsy middle order. Since the departure of Yousuf, Misbah-ul-Haq and Shoaib Malik, their middle order has looked both confused and unstable. A raft of players flung in and out of the team, spin-bowling all-rounders Shadab Khan and Mohammed Nawaz too auditioned.
In the series against Afghanistan, they dallied with three different combinations. In the first two games, Salman Agha batted at No 5; in the third Shakeel was tried. Salman was restored for the first three games of the Asia Cup, before they resorted to Mohammad Haris in the final match of the difficult tournament. The crisis meant that Pakistan became a top-heavy side — between 2019 and 2023, the top three have accounted for nearly 60 percent of the runs the team has made and accounted for all the 12 hundreds in this span.
All this while, former players kept criticising, even ridiculing, the treatment of players. “Look at any tournament Pakistan has done well in, the middle order was the key. Give the players at least a long run. In the 1992 World Cup, Inzamam-ul-Haq did not have a great match until the semifinal, but how important that was,” former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ramiz Raja would fume on SUNO News.
Comparing with the past
Over the decades, Pakistan has had wonderful openers and one-drop batsmen. Wrist-artist Saeed Anwar; six-colossus Shahid Afridi, buccaneers Aamir Sohail and Ijaz Ahmed, the quietly purposeful Younis Khan and now Babar Azam. But the beating heart was always the middle order. It featured men of various styles and techniques. The indolently graceful Inzamam-ul-Haq, whose 277 outings (out of 378) games arrived at 4, 5. 6 or 7; or the imperious Yousuf with that high and languorous back-lift, or the late-blooming Misbah-ul-Haq. Or the man who defines the essence of Pakistan’s batting ideals — Javed Miandad. There has always been a steady stream of aesthetically pleasing batsmen from the country, who were loved and idolised, but the physical definition of the Pakistan school of batting was always Miandad.
He was the everyman cricketer, the one who founded his batting on defiance and bravado (though it has to be mentioned that his technique was robust, he possessed fast hands, feet and brain, but always made it look like cricket was a battle of wits). He embodied the tigerishness of Imran’s cornered tigers, the unflappability, the mischief, shrewdness (he found improbable gaps in the field), even the arrogance that the team would somehow find a way through.
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Shakeel has some Miandad qualities — his manipulation of field is immaculate; the junctures he chooses to counterattack are timely; the avenues he chooses are wise. He has the wits and smarts about him. But he is no Miandad.
But then, every time someone shows some promise at number four or five, Miandad creeps in subconsciously. Miandad is a high bar for any youngster to scale. But given the shortage of quality middle-order batsmen the country has produced in recent times, the hype around Shakeel is understandable.
Mature head
Little wonder then that many, including Mohammed Rizwan, believe he is a superstar in the making. “If Saud maintains the hard work he’s doing, Pakistan will have found themselves another superstar,” he says, with Shakeel beside him on a couch. The latter shuts his eyes and looks down, expressionless, as though he was deaf to the praise.
In their match-defining stand against the Netherlands, picking up Pakistan from 43/3, the trait that impressed Rizwan the most was Shakeel’s shrewdness. In the 22nd over of the game, Shakeel spotted that there was an extra man outside the ring. He did not point this out to the umpire then, because he knew that if didn’t, he couldn’t be given out even if he got out, for the ball would be judged a no-ball. So, he chipped down the track and lifted Roelof van der Merwe for a four between long-on and midwicket. Then, he had a chat with the umpire, who signaled a no-ball and free-hit. He duly despatched it into the stands. “The awareness he showed is what I liked the most about him, “ Rizwan would say. He would again talk up his superstar potential: “He has gifts that make him a different kind of superstar!”
On the SAMAA panel, Yousuf calls him “sensible, “purpose-based in nets” and “the best player of spin in Pakistan”. Afridi has the last word on Shakeel’s success: “Look how many first-class games he has played? He had five seasons under his belt before he played international cricket. So in the five years, he must have batted on every kind of pitch and in every situation, and against bowlers of all sorts,” he says. The show winds up abruptly, before Afridi begins to get preachy about playing in the Pakistan Super League.
But far from all the buzz and fuss, Shakeel is putting on a sparkling show by himself.
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