Undoubtedly FakharZaman has talent, but the question is that could he achieve the same heights like golden greats “Brian Charles Lara” and “Sachin Ramesh Tendukar”? Pakistan cricket has a knack of producing raw talent every now and then. In the Champions Trophy 2017, they found another in the form of FakharZaman. Not many had heard of him before the tournament. It was his heroics in the final against arch-rivals India that enabled Pakistan to enforce a thumping victory and become the Champion of Champions.
It was a brave-hearted effort from the 27-year-old who shocked the opposition and made the strong Indian line-up look like an average one. His knock of 114 really set the tone for the team who went on to score a massive 338 while batting first. Zaman combined brilliant technique with an aggressive batting style to silence the Indian bowlers; something Pakistan have sorely missed in the top order.
The last two innings of Fakhar Zaman against the World XI in the T-20 series against Pakistan have exposed a little of his batting technique to me. It seems that Fakhar Zaman has a lack of temperament and thin ability to tackle spin bowling. Great batsmen make batting look easy, simple and assured. Great batsmen are difficult to bowl at.
It seems that Fakhar Zaman has a lack of temperament and thin ability to tackle spin bowling. Great batsmen make batting look easy, simple and assured: great batsmen are difficult to bowl at
Fakhar Zaman is defined by the sideways stance with pendulum swinging bat. His feet movement during batting was too slow and it could be very difficult for him to counter spin bowling, especially in future Test matches. It is too early to say that Fakhar Zaman achieve the same raise like Brain Lara and Sachin Tendukar. Brian Lara is undoubtedly one of the greatest batsmen of all time. In his days, he was a treat to watch. There was a rare grace in his batting style. He had amazing footwork, and a great range of shots. Even his stance was thrilling – the bat raised high in the air, the weight poised on a bent front knee, the eyes low and level. Then the guillotine would fall, sending the ball flashing to the boundary.
Lara is arguably the best player against spin bowling the game has ever seen. If a bowler could use his hand and the turf to make the ball dance, Lara could negate all that with his own blended performance at the receiving end. He did that a lot against pace too.
And for a very long time, bowling sides seemed to be playing two oppositions in the same game. Fakhar proved in the tournament that by being aggressive at the start, the opposition can be pushed on the back foot straight away. But for achieving that great height, Fakhar should more improve his batting stance, footwork, temperament etc. Two decades ago, Pakistan boasted an intimidating bowling line-up of Wasim Akam and Waqar Younis but had equally adept players in the top order – Saeed Anwar and Inzamam-ul-Haq. But more recently, they looked like a pretty one-dimensional side which was heavy in the bowling department. The batting had become so weak that they, at times, failed to chase down even mediocre totals.
Pakistan had tremendous batting talents like Saeed Anwar, Aamer Sohail, and Salim Malik in the past. Great batsmen are difficult to bowl at: this is true about Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting, Dravid, Kallis and many more legends who graced the batting crease. But is great batting easy to write about as well? Yes, but for the exception of Brian Charles Lara.
And this idiosyncratic demeanour carried by him isolates him of any comparisons. Tendulkar is picture perfect, Ponting is defined by the sideways stance with pendulum swinging bat, and Dravid and Kallis by their minimalistc approach.
This is the time for Pakistan to start building on the team they believe would hold good for two more years. They have to invest in the younger generation of batsmen coming from domestic cricket. They need to bring in fresh talent, test them on the big stage, see how they perform, and groom them for the big tournament.
Now it is the time that coaches of Pakistan Cricket Team should point out the little mistakes of the talented Fakhar Zaman and prepare him like a horse of the long race.
It is true that the world had seen excellent batting talent in past like West Indies’ Ramnaresh Sarwan, Vinod Kambli, Imran Nazir and many others, but they failed to achieve the targets.
Undoubtedly these batmen had talent, but they had some little fault in their batting techniques. No one pointed out there mistakes and they failed to blossom out more. Now it is up to Fakhar Zaman from where he wants to see himself: in the line of Vinod Kambli and Imran Nazir, or in the line of the great Brain Lara and Sachin Tendulkar.
The author is working as a journalist in an Islamabad-based News Agency
Published in Daily Times, September 16th 2017.