Saud Shakeel’s career graph is a curious study. He made his ODI debut six months before his Test debut, could do little of importance in white-ball cricket, then had a blazing run in Test cricket and just when it was thought that he’s made for the red-ball game, he sneaked into the Pakistan squad for the ODI World Cup.
Shakeel didn’t stop at that as he played a counter-attacking knock of 68 off 52 balls against the Netherlands in Hyderabad on Friday to pull Pakistan out of trouble.
Mohammad Rizwan, with whom Shakeel shared a match-turning 120-run partnership in Hyderabad, thinks the left-handed batter has the traits of a superstar.
“If Saud maintains the hard work he’s doing, then Pakistan will get another superstar... Because he’s a bit different in the way he’s gifted. When I bat with Saud, I tell him I’m not planning anything, because the way he plays, his shots get him runs anyway.
“If he plays like he normally does, he’ll be fine and score quickly. But he has gifts that make him a different kind of superstar,” Rizwan said of Shakeel, who was adjudged Man of the Match on Friday.
Before the Netherlands match, Shakeel had just 76 runs to show from the six ODIs he played. His Test record, however, is mind-boggling. From 13 innings, the Karachi-born 28-year-old has scored 875 runs at a stunning average of 87.50 and also has a double century to flaunt.
At a time when cricketers dodge past Test cricket to prolong their T20 careers, Shakeel has swum against the tide to use the red-ball game to hone his white-ball skills.
“I think I performed very well in the Test matches, so my confidence level was very high. But at the same time, I was focusing a lot on my white-ball cricket. I was focusing a lot on my game. A person has a vision and works hard for it... When I played Test match cricket against Sri Lanka, I showed that I am ready for white-ball cricket,” Shakeel said on Friday.
For a team to win a World Cup, often a new star emerges on the horizon to pull off surprise tricks. Can Shakeel do what Inzamam-ul Haq did for Pakistan in 1992?
