Afghanistan’s Fazalhaq Farooqi, who destroyed the Sri Lankan batting with his 3/11 spell, exploited his familiarity with the UAE conditions to earn success in the Asia Cup opener on Saturday. Farooqi, who made his T20I debut against Zimbabwe in Abu Dhabi in 2021, plays for the Delhi Bulls in the Abu Dhabi T10 tournament.
Often producing match-winning spells for his team, Farooqi’s Delhi Bulls colleagues call him the “silent assassin”, while captain Dwayne Bravo considers him the “man with the golden arm”. From being a net bowler in the IPL, for the Kings XI Punjab in 2020 and for Chennai Super Kings in 2021, the 21-year-old Afghan has progressed rapidly. After he was picked up by the Sunrisers Hyderabad for IPL 2022, he was also signed up by the Colombo Stars for the postponed Lanka Premier League 2022.
Surprise bowler
The 1988 Asia Cup, held in Bangladesh, was sponsored by a cigarette company like the 1984 and 1986 editions. India beat Sri Lanka by six wickets in the final to emerge champions. The surprise performance on November 4 came from India opener Krishnamachari Srikkanth, who took 3/12.
Looking back on that final in Dhaka, former Sri Lanka off-spinner Ranjith Madurasinghe, who was one of Srikkanth’s scalps, told The Telegraph: “We were on top before the final. In that game, three of our batsman — Aravinda de Silva, Arjuna Ranatunga and Athula Samarasekara — got run out. If not, it would have been a different game. On top of the run-outs, we lost three quick wickets to Srikkanth, who surprised us as a bowler.”
Questions on the floor
Pre-match media conferences at the ICC Academy are always packed. On the eve of the India-Pakistan match, television cameramen decided to have a close shoot of the players by positioning themselves in the front. As a result, the journalists had to look for seats that would not obstruct the cameras and many just decided to sit on the floor. India captain Rohit Sharma had to repeatedly answer queries from scribes seated on the floor. So, those seated at the back saw the player on the cameras while hearing him speak live.
At catching practice
The press conference room is air-conditioned but coming in from the scorching weather outside makes everyone thirsty. So when chilled water bottles arrived, there was a rush to get them. Some journalists who had a seat were concerned about losing their place, so requested the ones close to the bottles to pass around a few. Soon, water bottles went flying all around the room and the journalists had some catching practice.
