The curious case of Pakistani spinners

Pakistan’s cricket team never ceases to surprise me. It keeps on churning out one talented player after another with great speed but sadly also keeps discarding them at a greater speed. Even today we see talented players like Afridi, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf and Abdul Razzaq in and out of the team. If I start writing obituaries of the careers of amazingly talented Pakistani players, this article will run in multiple volumes.

However, I would like to concentrate on three amazing spinners from Pakistan whose career figures don’t do justice to their talent at all. Saqlain Mushtaq, Mushtaq Ahmed and Danish Kaneria have more than 650 test wickets among them. Its painful to see that they couldn’t end up in the league of spinners like Murali, Warne, Kumble or even Harbhajan. Let’s analyse each of them.

Mushtaq Ahmed: Three leg spinners started their careers at a time when it was beginning to be considered a dying art. Shane Warne, Anil Kumble and Mushtaq Ahmed were like a breath of fresh air in the early nineties. There was nothing more exciting for a 9 year old boy like me than seeing a leg spinner bowling a batsman round his legs. Mushtaq Ahmed was more fascinating to me as I would never understand how he would turn the ball both ways with the same action (I also liked him because I share my birthday with him). I had not learned the concept of the googly till then. In fact, I started observing every delivery of Mushtaq Ahmed and used to guess whether it would turn to right or left. I would be wrong most of the time, and eventually gave up. During the 1992 World Cup it was nearly impossible to detect his googlies. In 1995 would any cricket expert have believed that at the end of their careers, Anil Kumble would have 600+ test wickets, Shane Warne would have 700+, while Mushtaq Ahmed would not even reach 200? Unfortunately Mushtaq’s career started spiralling downwards and he wasn’t given the needed support by his board. Between March 1998 and Oct 2003 he played just sixteen test matches taking just 30 wickets and just seventeen ODIs taking 17 wickets. Infact his career was more or less over by early 2001. He was recalled for thew 2003 home series against South Africa, in which he couldn’t make an impact and was discarded forever. However he continued to play well in county cricket, played decently in the ICL and has 1407 first class wickets. His talent can be gauged from the fact that he was the bowling coach of England for a couple of years and at the moment England has the best bowling attack in cricket.

Saqlain Mushtaq: The man who has changed offspin bowling in the cricket world forever. He started off as a nineteen year-old accurate offspinner for Pakistan. He was so accurate that his captain would give him his first over after 30 overs have been bowled in an ODI and he would return with super-economical figures. He was the fastest to reach 100, 150, 200 and 250 wickets in ODIs, as well as the inventor of the offspinner’s answer to legspinners googly – the “Doosra”. As a child I was so impressed by him that I started bowling offspin and even tried to model my own bowling action after him. I was sure that he was going to be the Sachin Tendulkar of all bowling records. He was so young and had so many wickets under his belt already. His bowling average of of 21.78, economy rate of 4.29 and strike rate of 30.4 in ODIs just shows how much of difference he made in ODIs. His performance against India in 1998 Chennai test can never be forgotten.

Unfortunately, even his career followed that of his namesake Mushtaq. If he was given half as many chances given to Harbhajan he would have been among the highest wicket takers in cricket.The final nail in his career’s coffin was when he returned with figures of 43-4-204-1 after Sehwag’s epic assault at Multan. His international career was over after that at the age of just 27 when he had nearly 500 international wickets. He, however, continued to play well for his county and even qualified to play for England. Unwittingly, he signed for the ICL and that ended his chance of even playing in English colours. He even invented another variation “Teesra” or “Jalebi”, which can be seen on Youtube. He is younger than Sachin Tendulkar and Muralitharan by more than three years, I can’t imagine what kind of records he would have had if only luck was with him.

Danish Kaneria: The record for most Test wickets taken by a Pakistani spinner would have belonged to either of the two Mushtaqs if they were given chances. However, that title now rests with Danish Kaneria, with one of the cleanest legspinning actions and a well-disguised googly. He is just 30 years old and even he is more or less discarded by the PCB. 261 wickets in 61 test matches and 954 first class wickets is no mean achievement. He had a very successful stint with Essex as well, and was away from controversies for a considerable amount of time but sadly got involved in a spot fixing controversy,which led to his arrest, though he was cleared by the police. He was also picked for the series against South Africa but not allowed to board the plane to UAE at the last moment. No reason was given for his exclusion. I would really want him to make a comeback in the Pakistani team and take many more wickets. He has several years of cricket still left in him, but the way things happen in Pakistan cricket this may well be the end of Danish Kaneria too as the current Pakistani spinners are doing quite well.

Mushtaq Ahmed, Saqlain Mushtaq and Danish Kaneria. Any cricket board would have done anything to have even one of them in their team. They had the talent to take 650 test wickets individually, but sadly that’s what all three of them ended up with combined.

Edited by Rishabh Bablani