Islamabad
Former captain Inzamam-ul-Haq has revealed that during Pakistan team’s tour to England in 1992 he was facing difficulty to deal with short-pitched balls but a small tip by Indian batting great Sunil Gavaskar helped him overcome that problem forever.
“I went to England after 1992 World Cup at the back of a tremendous performance in the mega event. It was my first ever tour to England. I didn’t have any idea as how should I play on those pitches. I was going through a bad patch as I was unable to play short-pitched deliveries. “Playing these [short-pitched] balls had always been my plus point. And prior to that tour, these balls never troubled me as I used to negotiate them very well,” Inzamam said in a video on his YouTube channel.
He recalled how during a charity match he came across the legendary Indian batsman and sought his advice to resolve that problem. “It was somewhere half of our season that I met him at a charity match in England. We both had gone to play that match. And I asked him ‘Sunil Bhai I’m facing problems to play short-pitched balls, what should I do’? “As great are the ways of the great, he told me to do only one little thing, that is, don’t think about short-pitched balls or bouncers while batting because the moment you’ll think about them you’ll get trapped.
“He told me that when the bowler would deliver the ball you would automatically understand; so don’t get worried about that.
“While in nets I started practicing the way I was told by him. I strengthened my mind, telling myself not to thinks about that [short-pitched balls]. The weakness was removed. And from 1992 till the time I retired, I never faced that problem again,” added the 50-year-old Inzamam, who scored 8,830 runs in 120 Tests and 11739 runs in 378 ODIs. He said great players like Sunil had so much understanding of the game that they could solve a big problem through a small tip. Inzamam wished to have played against then Indian side for whom Sunil had been playing. “I wish I would’ve seen him live while he was batting.” He said by scoring 10,000 runs in Test cricket, Sunil opened the door for other batsmen to also reach that milestone.
“There were several great players in his era as well as before that. There were batsmen like Javed Miandad, Viv Richards, Garry Sobers and Don Bradman but none of them thought to reach to the figure. “Even in today’s cricket when there is too much Test cricket there are very few players who’ve achieved that feat.”
Inzamam said in Sunil’s era there were hardly five to six Test matches [for a country] during the entire year as against today when countries like Australia, England, South Africa and India had started to play even ten to twelve matches in a year.
“If [as a batsman] your form is good you can even score 100 0 to 1500 runs in a season. But when Sunil was batting, the situation was not like that.
“Today purely batting wickets are prepared so that you can continue scoring runs. The ICC also wants to see batsmen doing that so that spectators are entertained.
“But in the past wickets were not so easy to bat on, especially when you were playing outside the subcontinent.”
He said even the formation of a cricket bat at that time was different from that of current era. “The bats were not like that as you simply touch the ball and it goes for a boundary or for a six. In today’s cricket runs are scored in a way that the timing and technique have not a much role in that.
“But during Sunil’s days, you couldn’t score runs unless you had pure timing and a perfect batting technique.
“So considering all that if you ask me I’ll say Sunil’s 10,000 runs of that era are equal to today’s 15,000 to 16,000 runs. These can be more than that but not less in anyway.”
Inzamam also wished a long life for the former Indian great saying that cricketers also benefitted a lot from Sunil’s commentary and expert analysis. He said Sunil was a great asset and as he had turned 71, the other day, he wanted to comment on his birth anniversary.—APP
