“I used to do my rehab at 4am but I was motivated to make a comeback.” – Hasan Ali
Telford Vice | Cape Town
HE hasn’t the athleticism of Shaheen Afridi or Kagiso Rabada, nor the pace of Anrich Nortjé. He isn’t particularly tall, nor especially quick. He doesn’t swing the ball as much as Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis used to do, and Shoaib Akhtar’s grimy malevolence is not his style. But he is explosive, and he knows it. If you don’t know it, Hasan Ali tells you at the top of his lungs when he takes a wicket: “Boom!” Nevermind the tuk-tuk, start the generator.
We’ve seen and heard a lot of that over the past five days. On Monday, Hasan accomplished what none of the other bowlers above have done by taking 10 wickets in a Rawalpindi Test. It’s true that Afridi, Rabada and Nortjé haven’t had much opportunity to play in Pindi, but only one other player has banked 10 wickets there: Mohammad Zahid, the comet who collided with reality almost as soon as he streaked into view. Zahid claimed 11/130 against New Zealand in Pindi in November 1996 — making him the only Pakistani to take 10 on debut — and was lauded as the game’s fastest bowler by Brian Lara. But back injuries limited him to just four more Tests. His last was at Newlands in January 2003, when he took 2/108 in South Africa’s only innings. That was also his last match for Pakistan. He was 27.
Hasan will turn 27 on July 2 this year. That’s not his only parallel with Zahid, and indeed with Junaid Khan, Rumman Raees and Mohammad Abbas, and the rest of the host of Pakistan fast bowlers whose careers have been derailed by injury. Back and rib problems kept Hasan off the field from June to September in 2019. By then, because of failing form not helped by other injuries, he had lost his contract with the PCB. The first Test against South Africa in Karachi last week was his first match for Pakistan in 19 months. On a spinner’s pitch, he was ineffective and took 2/122. So if you thought you saw desperation in the way he tore to the bowling crease in Rawalpindi, you weren’t wrong.
“The special thing [about his haul of 10/114] was that I was injured,” Hasan told an online press conference on Monday. “And the other thing was the hard work that I put in. I was making a comeback and making a comeback doesn’t mean just coming into the side, playing the match and going back. My aim was to perform for my country.”
Job done. Hasan dismissed Rassie van der Dussen in both innings, and counted the wickets of Dean Elgar, Aiden Markram, Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock among his trophies. More than that, he bowled with heart and soul as much as with technique and talent. South Africans would agree. He is that guy in the opposing team, the one you are happy to see succeed despite the badge on his shirt. Maybe overcoming adversity unites those who would otherwise be divided.
“It was a very tough time for me,” Hasan said of his long months away from the game. “I can’t even begin to express how tough a time it was … I was injured and it was the time of corona, too, which meant I couldn’t even go anywhere. It was really hard but I really want to thank my wife, who was always with me and always motivated me; my older brother, who motivated me and kept telling me that I will make a comeback. There were some senior players, too, like Shoaib Malik, who supported me a lot, and special thanks to the PCB too, who supported me throughout. They sent me for my rehab and the medical panel was always in touch with me. And I also didn’t give up and I put in a lot of effort to make a comeback. I still remember I used to [do] my rehab at 4am but I was motivated to make a comeback.”
Given all that, Hasan’s barbed response when he was asked why he bowled only four overs in his first spell on Monday, and then left the field temporarily, is easily forgiven: “It is a team game. This is not a Hasan Ali cricket game, who has put money in the game and he will bowl whenever he wants … There’s a strategy for the team and I picked wickets [of Van der Dussen and Du Plessis] in the four overs, and there was a plan after that to bring back the spinners. There was a lot in the wicket for the spinners, although they didn’t pick up too many wickets. There was no problem with my fitness.”
Cricket would be a better game if more players were as forthright. As Hasan bowls, so he talks: like a man unafraid of confronting a challenge, on or off the field. And not only in rehab at 4am. For one thing, his wife, Shamia Arzoo, a Dubai-based flight engineer, is Indian; a complication in its own league. For another, five months before their wedding last August she told an Instagram follower that her favourite batter was Virat Kohli. In the toxic mix of sport, social media and cynical nationalism powered by clickbait, such disparate dots are easily connected by those who have ulterior intent.
But the couple would seem to be made of stuff stern enough to clear those hurdles, as suggested by the Pakistan team’s giddy celebration after they clinched victory by 95 runs on Monday to seal the series 2-0. Arranged in a circle, they swayed their hands from side to side as if rocking a cradle.
“I’m going to be a father soon,” Hasan explained. “My baby is on the way.” There’s a shorter way to say that: “Boom!”
First published by Cricbuzz.
Bulletproof Truth 