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| 'Mystery snipers' that deliver better results at lower cost: The specialty of Kabul that produces quality snipers |
This is a few years old. Rashid Khan was invited as a special guest in a program at a cricket academy in Kabul.
Seeing Rashid Khan, a very popular cricketer among the youth, many youths of Afghanistan adopted cricket and most of them decided to try their hand at spin bowling like him.
That day, Rashid Khan saw around 250 young players doing spin bowling. Rashid Khan later told this to famous Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle.
During an IPL match last Friday, Bhogle once again asked him how many 'mystery snipers' there would be in Afghanistan today. So Rashid Khan replied in a very calm tone: 'There will be a thousand.'
We may not know the exact figures, but one thing is for sure there are about half a dozen players from Afghanistan who have made their mark in the Indian Premier League (IPL), and cricket leagues around the world have taken them home. Inviting to play.
Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi, Mujeebur Rehman, Noor Ahmed, Rehmanullah Garbaz, and Naveen ul Haq are some of the names who have made Afghan cricket known around the world. Among them, Rashid, Noor, Garbaz, and Naveen are representing different teams in IPL this year.
Afghanistan's 'mystery snipers'
Four of these Afghan players are known for their excellent spin bowling. Rashid Khan has been the number-one spinner of T20 for the past ten years. 18-year-old Noor Ahmed has also cemented his place in the Gujarat Titan team this season.
In the match against Rajasthan Royals, Rashid Khan got three wickets while Noor Ahmed also got two wickets.
Akash Chopra, doing the commentary in Hindi, raised a question in the middle of the match that what is happening in Kabul is that quality spinners are coming out one after the other.
According to him, these spinners are somewhat mysterious spinners whose arm action is fast and the batsmen often fail to read them.
Well-known Indian cricketer Anil Kumble answered this question and said that Rashid Khan has inspired an entire generation. Seeing them, other young people also want to be like them and this is the reason for the spin revolution in Afghanistan.
Former cricketer Pragyan Ojha made an interesting analysis while participating in this conversation. He says that usually when a young sniper goes to a trained coach, the coach must make some changes in his action. But since the coaching system in countries like Afghanistan and Sri Lanka is not that strong, the action the young bowlers there come up with is almost the same when they come out in international cricket and become mystery snipers.
They say that there is no specific reason for this. A combination of factors has produced young Afghan snipers.
Are Afghan cricketers replacing West Indies players?
The country that has the highest demand for players in the IPL and other major T20 leagues is the West Indies. Firstly, the cricketers there play fast and short-duration cricket in a very natural way and secondly, the players there do not hesitate to leave the national team and play T20 leagues.
If we talk about the performance of the West Indies players in this year's IPL, none other than Kylie Meyers and Nicholas Pooran have shown more impressive performances. IPL legends like Chris Gayle, Pollard, and Bravo have all retired while Andre Russell's bat has been largely silent this season.
Players like Al-Zari Joseph, Sunil Narine, and Rowman Powell are also not able to do anything special.
If they are compared with the players of Afghanistan, Rahmanullah Garbaz has played two excellent innings for Kolkata, and Naveen-ul-Haq is playing an important role in the Lucknow team with his frugality.
Rashid Khan playing for Gujarat, Rashid Khan is currently the highest wicket-taker with 19 wickets along with Mohammad Shami, while Noor Ahmed has taken 11 wickets at an average of 16 in seven matches.
On the other hand, Fazal Haq Farooqui has not yet secured a place in the Hyderabad team and has so far participated in only two matches and taken three wickets.
Less money and better performance
Another characteristic of Afghanistan players is that they have been bought for very little money.
This season, Rashid Khan was bought by Gujarat for a mere Rs 1.5 crore. He is performing better than Cameron Green, Sam Curran, or Harry Brook bought for more than Rs 15 crore and joined the team for ten times less than him.
The services of other good players like Garbaz, Farooqui, and Naveen-ul-Haq, etc. have been acquired for only 50 lakhs. While Noor Ahmed was on the bench last season, he has played seven matches this season and has been confirmed in the team. Their price is only 30 lakhs.
Afghan players have become the favorites of all the IPL teams, offer huge benefits for less money, and may soon take the status of West Indies players in the IPL.
Afghan Players at a Glance: Rashid Khan
When Rashid Khan was not playing cricket, his favorite sport was bowling. When he came to cricket, without the help of any coach, he created his own bowling action which proved to be fast and accurate on target just like Ghaleel.
Rashid Khan has taken more than 500 wickets in T20 cricket, while he has 129 wickets in T20 International and the average is also better. Is.
Along with this, he has taken 127 wickets in 101 matches at an average of 20.8 in IPL. Along with bowling, he is an excellent fielder who hardly drops a catch and can bat very quickly in the lower order.
Noor Ahmed
18-year-old Noor Ahmed took 56 wickets in 56 T20 matches at an average of 26.3. Along with this, he has taken 11 wickets in seven matches of the IPL.
In Under-19 cricket, he took four wickets against India, including the wickets of captain Tilak Verma and Dhru Jural.
Noor Ahmed came to the notice of the Afghanistan Cricket Board in 2018. In 2019, at the age of just 14, he appeared in the IPL auction but was not bought by anyone. In the same year in U-19 cricket, he took four wickets against India.
At the age of 16, he got a chance to play for Melbourne in Australia's Big Bash League where he took the wicket of Liam Livingston. He was bought by Gujarat last year and got a chance to play in the IPL this season.
Rahmanullah Garbaz
Wicketkeeper-batsman Rehmanullah Garbaz has some records that show how much talent he has.
He is 10th in the list of most runs (582) by a wicketkeeper in the ODI series.
He scored a century (127 runs) in his ODI debut match. He is sixth in terms of scoring three centuries in the ODI series.
Garbaz, who made his debut in 2019, has so far scored 582 runs in 15 ODIs. Along with this, he has scored 1019 runs in 41 T20 international matches. Apart from this, he has scored 183 runs at an average of 26 in seven IPL matches.
In the current season of IPL, he scored two fifties for Kolkata, with his highest score being 81 runs.
Naveen Haque
Naveen Haq, born in September 1999 in Kabul, is a fast bowler from Afghanistan.
He plays for Lucknow Supergiants in the Indian Premier League. Naveen-ul-Haq has also participated in many other leagues of the world including the Lanka Premier League, Pakistan Super League, Big Bash League, and Bangladesh Premier League.
Naveen has so far played seven ODIs in which he has taken 14 wickets. He has played 27 international T20 matches so far and has taken 34 wickets.
All these players are still young and can be expected to play well for many years and if Rashid Khan's talk of being a '1000' spinner is even remotely true, then in the coming days, leagues around the world will There will be a flood of Afghan players.