Yeh kaun hai, do daant ka bakra?” That was the first reaction that Hasan Ali heard as he walked in for his first-ever press conference a year ago following his Pakistan Super League (PSL) debut.
It only got worse from there though. Most of the questions that followed were loosely based on the same theme of “who are you?” and “what are you doing here?” as the youngster shifted gingerly on his chair and mumbled monosyllabic responses. It had been a rather emotional day for Ali.
Earlier that afternoon, Mohammad Akram, former Pakistan fast bowler and coach of Peshawar Zalmi- Ali’s PSL franchise-had informed his protégé about being picked in the playing XI. As he recalls now, there was also a stirring lecture.
“I told him, ‘This is not your place. Your place is in the national team. Your PSL debut might be your first game at such a big level. But you should consider this only as a club game and think you’re made for bigger things’,” Akram tells The Indian Express. Ali took only a solitary wicket in that first match before having to deal with the baptism by fire by the Pakistani media post it. In only a couple of months, Ali was at Dublin, donning national colours in an ODI against Ireland and making his mentor’s prediction come true. By then, the whole of Pakistan knew who the wiry youngster was, their latest pace sensation.
And his name and reputation only kept rising as the year went on. No bowler has taken more ODI wickets, 38 of them, than Ali since he made his debut. And at the Champions Trophy, he’s duly announced himself to the cricket world with three-wicket hauls—and big wickets at that—in three straight matches against South Africa, Sri Lanka and England to lead his team into the final on Sunday. He also presently sits clearly on top as the leading wicket-taker of the tournament.
Ali is a misnomer of sorts when you think of Pakistani fast bowlers. The archetypal Pakistani fast bowler was always someone blessed with broad, Herculean shoulders like say a Shoaib Akhtar, height like Wasim Akram or Mohammad Irfan though he’s more a freak or a lithe, muscular frame like a Waqar Younis or Aaqib Javed.
Hasan Ali is a misnomer of sorts when you think of Pakistani fast bowlers. (Source: AP)
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It only got worse from there though. Most of the questions that followed were loosely based on the same theme of “who are you?” and “what are you doing here?” as the youngster shifted gingerly on his chair and mumbled monosyllabic responses. It had been a rather emotional day for Ali.
Earlier that afternoon, Mohammad Akram, former Pakistan fast bowler and coach of Peshawar Zalmi- Ali’s PSL franchise-had informed his protégé about being picked in the playing XI. As he recalls now, there was also a stirring lecture.
“I told him, ‘This is not your place. Your place is in the national team. Your PSL debut might be your first game at such a big level. But you should consider this only as a club game and think you’re made for bigger things’,” Akram tells The Indian Express. Ali took only a solitary wicket in that first match before having to deal with the baptism by fire by the Pakistani media post it. In only a couple of months, Ali was at Dublin, donning national colours in an ODI against Ireland and making his mentor’s prediction come true. By then, the whole of Pakistan knew who the wiry youngster was, their latest pace sensation.
And his name and reputation only kept rising as the year went on. No bowler has taken more ODI wickets, 38 of them, than Ali since he made his debut. And at the Champions Trophy, he’s duly announced himself to the cricket world with three-wicket hauls—and big wickets at that—in three straight matches against South Africa, Sri Lanka and England to lead his team into the final on Sunday. He also presently sits clearly on top as the leading wicket-taker of the tournament.
Ali is a misnomer of sorts when you think of Pakistani fast bowlers. The archetypal Pakistani fast bowler was always someone blessed with broad, Herculean shoulders like say a Shoaib Akhtar, height like Wasim Akram or Mohammad Irfan though he’s more a freak or a lithe, muscular frame like a Waqar Younis or Aaqib Javed.
Hasan Ali is a misnomer of sorts when you think of Pakistani fast bowlers. (Source: AP)
