Misbah brought up the two inside-edged bowled dismissals of Rizwan in the world cup to accentuate his point. (Videograb/FILE)Mohammad Rizwan has been at this position before: when the world seemingly is against him. The chatter from former Pakistan players and the fans has been simple: his game has been found out. That the teams have sorted out that he likes to attack to the leg side, and are targeting the fourth stump, effectively tying him up to induce a mistake.
Before we get to the nitty-gritty of his batting, let’s cue up the make or break moment in the past and how he reacted then.
December 2020. The then coach Misbah-ul-Haq had made him open in T20s in New Zealand and two failures eventuated. Everything hung on the last T20. If he failed, even Misbah couldn’t have saved him from the axe. The selectors might have fallen back on Sarfraz, the captain and keeper who had led them to the famous Champions Trophy triumph.
“You know what he did?” His agent and mentor Talha Rehmani told The Indian Express. “He sent me a picture of something he wrote on a paper. It read: 76 not out. Man of the match. The 76 was crossed out and he had written on the side, “Allah, apni shaan ke mutaabiq de de! (Allah, you give according to your Greatness!) Rizwan made 89 that game, and hasn’t looked back since. “That was probably his last chance, not just as an opener but possibly as a player in the white-ball format. And he has this strange confidence, moved by faith in his own skill, hard work and God. It’s a combination that has stood by him through all his lows in life.”
The lip-creamed motor mouth of world cricket has been in a fallow form of late. Even his lip cream had evinced chatter from the fans and Wasim Akram had to shut one such query on television, asking “Are you so idle, don’t you have anything else to ask?”
Now to the batting issue. On Tuesday, Misbah-ul-Haq picked it up on ‘A Sports’.
“The teams have come with a plan. They are not bowling those middle and leg balls. They are generally bowling out swingers and even if the ball comes in, it comes in from the fourth stump outside off. He needs to counterattack,. Think differently,” Misbah warmed up.
He then brought up the two inside-edged bowled dismissals of Rizwan in the world cup to accentuate his point.
“Why did he get those inside-edges? When you try to play to the on side, the bat automatically comes down at an angle. His bat at times comes down from well outside off, at an angle. If he can get it closer to the body, much straighter, he will be fine.”
Misbah wants Rizwan to make a mental adjustment: “He should stop thinking about playing on the leg side. If he decides that, the bat will automatically come down a lot straighter. If he can hit a couple of fours on the off side, then the bowlers will start to play into his hands. He can then play his leg side shots. But first, he has to open up that off side.”
Another former captain Shahid Afridi has an interesting take to open up that off side.
Players like Babar Azam and Mohammed Rizwan have come under immense criticism of late for their slow and steady approach towards batting. (File) “”He will have to come down the track and take risks. He will have to make gaps towards mid-off and extra-cover and for this he will have to practice these strokes,” Afridi said on Samaa TV. “Every team does its homework before coming to a World Cup. For Rizwan, they’ve planned not to bowl him in the middle as he plays good shots towards deep square-leg and midwicket. He struggles towards the off-side.”
On October 8th, during a tri-series in New Zealand, Afridi had made a rousing support of Rizwan. “Rizwan doesn’t need to change his plan. There’s no need for him to listen to anyone,” Afridi had said after a few former players had urged Rizwan to be more attacking at the start. Now, even Afridi, it seems, is slowly losing patience.
Misbah felt that the extra bounce and pace on offer in Australia had been Rizwan’s undoing with respect to the leg side shots. “It’s not easy to fetch the ball from outside off stump in these conditions. Extra bounce can lead to a top edge or as we have seen extra pace can lead to inside edges. He has to open up the off side.”
In December 2020 in New Zealand, Pakistan coach Misbah had a chat with Rizwan about opening. “Open karoge na? New ball mey koi masla nahi, na? (Will you open? No problems with the new ball, right?).” “I will open, I am ready bhai” was the answer.
Now the question from Misbah is will you attack the off side? What’s Rizwan’s answer? We shall know very soon.