A FEW weeks ago I had suggested that if leg spinner Danish Kaneria could be encouraged to improve his batting skills, it would benefit the team immensely because it will allow the team management to pick him up for even the one-dayers and that would solve a key issue in team composition. Apparently the argument did not impress everyone. A letter published last week in this very magazine made me think again on what I had suggested, but it was not able to change my mind. And hereunder I tell you why.
In his letter to the Magazine, Raza Ali Dossa says, “I think Zaheer Abbas is grossly mistaken in suggesting that Danish Kaneria should learn to bat and someone should take him under his wings to teach him batting skills. It is imperative that if he is made to learn batting, his bowling is bound to suffer and that is not desirable. Specialist bowlers are meant to bowl their hearts out and similarly specialist batsmen are supposed to bat and score profusely.”
For starters, I never suggested that we should expect Kaneria to score runs on a consistent basis. That, of course, is the job of the specialist batsmen. What I suggested was a minimal skill to keep the ball away from the stumps and the ability to stay there long enough for the batsmen at the other end to score a few more runs.
To make myself clear on the issue I had even cited the example of Glenn McGrath, the Australian No. 11 who got his technique famously fine-tuned by Steve Waugh. It is interesting that prior to Waugh’s captaincy, McGrath had walked out to bat in Test matches 54 times and had reached double-digit scores only on six occasions. This roughly comes to around 11 per cent. Since his training lessons, he has batted 78 times in Tests, touching the double-digit landmark as many 17 times, which is about 22 per cent. Who do you think is the beneficiary? It is the team, of course.
The same is true of Jason Gillespie who recently scored a double century against Bangladesh even though all he knows is to offer a dead bat to the ball. Another one in the same category is England’s Matthew Hoggard. Even our own Shoaib Akhtar has done wonderfully well in this regard and has contributed handsomely to the team score. Even in the past, nightwatchmen like Sarfaraz Nawaz and Wasim Bari are worth recalling. And, of course, who can forget Saqlain Mushtaq whose intent to stay there as long as possible was as intense as his desire to pick up wickets with his crafty off-spin. The argument that Kaneria’s bowling suffer if he spends time on his batting skills does not hold water. Not for me.
To supplement his argument, Mr Dossa said in his letter, “Zaheer himself was a specialist batsman, but he never bowled and no body suggested that he should learn to bowl.” This is interesting. Yes, I was a specialist batsman, but I was not averse to the idea of bowling a few overs whenever the situation and, indeed, the captain so demanded.
When we toured Australia under Imran Khan in 1983-84, the team was struggling on various counts. The fourth Test of the series was played at the MCG and Pakistan had packed its side with batsmen in a move which was totally defensive. Pakistan scored 470 runs batting first, my own contribution was 44 before running myself out in a mid-pitch mixup.
In reply, Australia kept piling up runs and Pakistan did not have the bowling resources to do anything about it. We only had Sarfaraz, Azeem Hafeez and Abdul Qadir as specialist bowlers, and batsmen like Salim Malik and Javed Miandad had to turn their arms over. Mudassar Nazar, who was a more than able seamer, bowled as many as 20 overs, but I bowled 22 overs of my innocuous off-spin, conceding just 42 runs.
In the second innings, Pakistan scored 238, my own contribution was 50, and the match ended in a draw, which was the target set by the team management. You see, I contributed with the bat and the ball, and while I did not bring about the Australian downfall, I was at least able to contain the rivals and keep one end going, and my captain was grateful for that. I hope I have made point clear.
A FEW weeks ago I had suggested that if leg spinner Danish Kaneria could be encouraged to improve his batting skills, it would benefit the team immensely because it will allow the team management to pick him up for even the one-dayers and that would solve a key issue in team composition. Apparently the argument did not impress everyone. A letter published last week in this very magazine made me think again on what I had suggested, but it was not able to change my mind. And hereunder I tell you why.
When we toured Australia under Imran Khan in 1983-84, the team was struggling on various counts. The fourth Test of the series was played at the MCG and Pakistan had packed its side with batsmen in a move which was totally defensive. Pakistan scored 470 runs batting first, my own contribution was 44 before running myself out in a mid-pitch mixup.
