The lengthy minutes beside the fully-occupied nets ready for his flip to bowl looks like hours for Shahnawaz Dahani. Carrying a heat smile, he measures and remeasures his run-up, strokes his stubbled face, brushes the grass of his studs, rehearses his motion repeatedly, prances round restlessly right here and there, whispers one thing to a help employees that has him in splits. After which he hears the instruction he has been longing to listen to the entire night: “Dahani ab tu ja.”
These phrases fall on his ears like manna on dew. Contentment sparkles on his face. He turns again and begins to stride in, brief, concise strides gaining a livid acceleration as he leaps (not a vertical leap like most quick bowlers) into his load-up and unleashes his thunderbolts with a fluid launch and easy follow-through. His motion has a synchronised appeal reasonably than classical magnificence—cameras don’t actually seize the best way he bursts from a standing begin to a full dash in a blur. Each fibre in his physique is pointing straight forward: velocity, momentum, financial system.
Up shut, you might see the pressure on his face—shrivelled veins on his neck, face contorted, tooth gritting. The primary ball, he at all times, says is his effort ball. “Poora takat isme dalte hain. Wicket ya nahin, batsman ko dar aana hain pehle ball sein (I put full effort behind it. The batsmen should feel fear),” he had defined in interview on the Multan Sultan web site.
The batsman, Asif Ali, felt the fireplace and warmth of his first ball. The ball was straight and straightforwards. He can’t douse the fireball. The ball screams by way of the hole between the pad and bat that’s nonetheless on the descent and dishevels his off-stump.
It’s when Dahani comes actually alive and turns from from ruthless fast to a pure entertainer. He spreads his arms like an aeroplane and runs across the floor, as if this was taking place in an actual match. He celebrates his wicket within the nets too, for he says, “Azhar (Mahmood) bhai has told me to practise in the nets what I want to do in a game. So I celebrate in the nets too sometimes.”
It was not simply his tempo that made him an in a single day sensation however his penchant for celebrations. There are all kinds—the Shoaib Akhtar aeroplane dash, the Shahid Afridi statue pose, the Imran Tahir marathon dash, the Carlos Brathwaite phone ring wiggle and one among his personal, the place he pulls a masks on his face and thrusts his fingers ahead. He guffaws when he’s requested about his celebrations, usually essentially the most requested query in press conferences and interviews. His reply is usually easy. “Life tho celebrate karna hi hain, aur mere life tho bowling hi hain. Serious hona chahiye lekin thoda entertainment bhi chahiye. (Life is about celebrating and bowling is my life). I watch the celebrations of all bowlers carefully, especially those from the West Indies, it’s how I want to play my cricket, ” he says in an interview to CrickVick.
There’s an old-world spontaneity about him, an innocence the sport has misplaced way back. When he noticed MS Dhoni, who was India’s mentor final yr throughout the T20 World Cup, he instantly launched himself: “Aap hain Dhoni, mein hoo Dahani.” Dhoni was so charmed that after the coaching session, he took him apart for a chat, the place he transferred life and profession classes. “It will take a lot of time for me to explain the level of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Meeting him was a dream come true and I can’t forget that moment. His words were quite beneficial as he told me about life, how to live life, respecting the elders. He told that there will be bad and good days in cricket but you have to embrace it and stay dedicated to the game you love the most,” Dahani advised Cricket Pakistan.
what an evening it was, Happiness of Pakistan’s Victory and pleasure of assembly one among my dream participant @msdhoni can’t be forgotten.❤️🤙🤙 pic.twitter.com/CWQjm4vDKa
— Shahnawaz Dahani (@ShahnawazDahani) October 25, 2021
Like Dhoni gave an identification to Jharkand, a cricketing backwater, Dahani has made folks google Larkana, “hamara Larkana” as he at all times says, on the internet. Larkana is a metropolis in northwest Sindh with excessive climate, and has been devastated by the latest floods.
Dahani’s village, Khawar Khan Dahani, is so distant that it’s not even on the google map. The floods have left the village with out electrical energy for weeks, apart from leaving hundreds homeless. Dahani, on the social media, has been making frequent requests to the federal government for support and rescue operations. Each third put up on the Twitter is one thing associated to the village— its fields, playgrounds and easy life.
Not simply that Dahani is the primary worldwide cricketer from his village or his area, he’s the primary one from his space to even dream that they may play cricket for the nation. “We play a lot of cricket on our fields with tennis ball and tape-ball cricket. But we never took it seriously. You play for a while and then work on the farm, or study if you are good at it,” he advised Occasions and Happenings.
So when Dahani advised his father that he needs to play cricket for Pakistan sooner or later, his father gently advised him that “no one would take a player from interior Pakistan.” “He told me to focus on my studies and you could get a government job in Larkana. I did not want to offend him and agreed. When I thought harder that made sense. Who would pick me? No one has played for Pakistan from our region,” he recollected.
He channelled extra consideration on lecturers and farming. Each morning, he and his elder brother Majid would go their mustard farm and assist their father out, earlier than he would rush to the school. However the cricket dream nonetheless burned brilliant in him. His brother realised this and launched him to a buddy who performed for the Al Shahbaz Cricket Membership in Larkana. “He told me to come over, but then I became a bit scared because I had never played with hard ball. But he put me at ease and took me to the club, where I first started bowling with the leather ball,” he stated.
To not evoke his father’s suspicion, he would say there was particular lessons or exams. The larger hurdle was the cash to purchase the gear and sneakers. “I used to borrow shoes and even socks from my friends. Sometime, every day I wore a different pair of shoes that some of my club-mates thought I was rich,” he advised Occasions and Happenings.
However so pure his abilities have been that he made his first-class entry simply two years after he touched a cricket ball. And simply two years later, he was enjoying for Pakistan. He was travelling in a packed bus from Lahore to Larkana that he received the selector’s name. He instantly broke down.
“Baba ka yaad aagaya. He was the first person that I wanted to tell that I have been picked for Pakistan. He would have been so proud. I wept throughout the journey and after reaching home I went to offer my prayers beside his grave, before distributing sweets to the villagers.”
They stored apart all of the chores and celebrated wildly. Bollywood songs blaring within the background, he was and paraded across the village on an open-roof automotive, flowers have been showered on him from each home. “I felt so happy that I could do make my village proud. Ummeed hain ki mera gaav sein aur bhi log Pakistan ko khelega,” he stated. He’s so common that PCB chairman Ramiz Raja feels that he may win the polls from Sindh.
He carries a slice of Khawar Khan to wherever he goes. The innocence, simplicity and humour could possibly be traced to his background. However the backstory and leisure worth are simply subtexts of what makes him a particular bundle. He’s particular as a result of he’s a particular bowler too—one blessed with uncooked tempo, unbridled aggression and a strong physique to resist the pressure of bowling at excessive tempo. “Dahani is always smiling, whether he’s been hit or no. The whole team lights up. It’s like we’ve found a new Shoaib Akhtar,” says Azhar Mahmood, his coach at Multan Sultan.
However his bowling remains to be an unfinished product, he feels. “He has to work on his out-swinger. I have sent a whole list of where he needs to improve to the Pakistan bowling coach,” he had stated. Akhtar, impressed along with his perspective and tempo, desires him to focus extra on first-class cricket. Waqar Younis, in whose insistence he was picked when he was the staff’s coach, believes that he may emerge a bowler as deadly as Shaheen Shah Afridi. Dahani has not set the worldwide stage on hearth with the ball as but in his restricted outings—simply 5 white-ball video games—however he would wait patiently and smilingly for his flip to come back to have fun.
