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| If Zalmi could have learned from Zaman Khan: Sami Chaudhry's column |
Zaman Khan feels fortunate that he is getting the chance to flourish under the wings of Shaheen Shah Afridi.
If a novice fast bowler gets the kindness of a coach like Afridi, who himself has made his mark on the world of cricket at a young age, then it is no less than happiness.
Zaman's choice to bowl the last over on the most important occasions started last season. This partnership of Shaheen Afridi and Zaman Khan gave Qalandars their first PSL trophy last year, but this time this partnership has brought them to the defense of the title.
When Zaman Khan was showing the essence of his bowling in Mirpur, he used to be crazy about Shoaib Akhtar. He wanted to wreak havoc with the same pace with which Shoaib used to make packed stadiums in India roar.
During this time, Zaman used to watch videos of Malinga. Although he has never considered Malinga as his idol, naturally his action is very close to that of Malinga.
Fast bowlers of this action in T20 are like a double-edged sword that sometimes falls on the opposing team and sometimes on their own dressing room. Which turned out to be Peshawar's bowling.
The invention of the wide yorker is the defense mechanism of fast bowlers in modern cricket. A bowler hitting the 6th 7th stump line at a speed of 40 km per hour is not doing this to get a wicket but to earn a dot ball which is rare in the death overs of T20. Because even in the corners of the thick edges of modern balls, there is so much life that the ball coming at this speed is ready to cross the boundary even after hitting the edge.
If a wide yorker is not hit on target, the ball usually goes well beyond the boundary. And if the bowler tries extra hard to ensure the error in the batsman's aim, the ball sometimes hits the line after which a free hit is destined.
Renowned composer RD Burman told Gulzar that a song is not made just by singing, it has to be lived, hummed for hours, not hours, then a form of the song emerges.
Zaman Khan has also spent time in practice, the shape of which also emerged here in his last over. Earlier, he used to watch videos of Shoaib Akhtar and sometimes Malinga, but since he got the patronage of Afridi, he has stopped watching all the videos.
Here the most accurate wide yorkers of the era closed all the doors of convenience on Zalmi. Isn't it surprising that the last over of the first T20 innings was only six runs while half the batsmen were still in the dressing room?
Babar Azam's decision to bat first was also correct and he played his innings well according to the mood of the wicket but his bowling discipline destroyed all the foolproof plans of Darren Sammy. This pitch and this combination would have already been a harbinger of victory for Zalmi if Zalmi's fast bowlers were as skilled as Zaman Khan.
As in the previous match, the life on the pitch was only so much that the batsmen's excitement on the new ball was frozen. As the brightness of the ball decreases, so does the run rate. 170 here would also have been a very competitive total had the bowling discipline not been so poor.
In the most important matches, although Babar Azam's captaincy is always under discussion, here that front was more in the hands of Darren Sammy and the discipline of Zalmi's pacers was debatable. Where eighteen runs are sacrificed in the form of extra activities, how about turning the tables?
Salman Irshad and Aamir Jamal did not try to separate anything from Zaman Khan. He too was trying to keep the ball out of the batsman's reach but his practice and skill were a stark contrast to the previous match. Aamir Jamal kept looking for the length that he had found last evening.
Under the leadership of Shaheen Afridi, Qalandars lifted the trophy last year, washing away the stains of their first four seasons.
Here too, it was Shaheen who rang the bell for Lahore's entry into the final with his trademark six. If the Peshawar bowlers could have learned something from Zaman Khan, Lahore would not have had an easy chance of defending their title.