Naseem: Pakistan's 'Shah' of hearts

Andy Roberts, one of the greatest fast bowlers to have played the game, had been in Lahore for a three-week pace camp involving young pacers seven years or so ago. The day he was leaving, Roberts saw a boy crying and was wondering what had happened to him. That boy turned out to be Naseem Shah and when Roberts was sent a video of the former in 2019, the legendary Caribbean pacer immediately recognised that 'special boy' from that camp. As per Roberts, Naseem, at that age too, was aggressive and had the ability to move the ball with a great deal of pace. 

Now 19, the young fast bowler from Pakistan has seen and gone through a lot in life. He didn't have a pair of spikes even four years ago and had no idea what a leather ball was. From gully cricket to the Under-16 team, it was a huge shift but the talent had him pass the next tests with flying colours. But probably the biggest of them appeared before him even before he made it to international cricket.

Naseem lost his mother on the night before his Test debut and for a 16-year-old, it was more than a massive blow. His brothers advised him to stay back and serve the country as he wouldn't be able to make it on time. For someone as experienced as MS Dhoni, it was easier to say, "I am on national duties, so everything else can wait" when he missed the birth of his first child. But it was a tough decision for a teenager like Naseem.

The next day he shook up the likes of Usman Khawaja and Marcus Harris with incredible pace and bounce and miles away, India's bowling coach Bharat Arun referred to him as 'Superstar'.

In his short career marred by injuries, Naseem indeed delivered some superstar performances. He is the youngest fast bowler to take a five-wicket haul in Tests (against Sri Lanka) and the youngest to bag a hat-trick (against Bangladesh). 

Naseem bowls fast and can regularly hit the 145 kph mark. But in Pakistan, you cannot take your place in the team granted if you can bowl fast. There are too many - Haris Rauf, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Musa among many others - who can bowl at a rapid pace and you have to have special qualities to make your mark.

So, despite getting chances in Tests, white-ball opportunities were hard to come by for him. With an injury to Pakistan's talisman Shaheen, an uncapped Naseem was drafted into the squad and given a go against India. And he didn't look like someone who was playing his first T20I. He almost got Virat Kohli out, only denied by a dropped catch by Babar Azam. But he finished with two for 27, getting the wickets of Suryakumar Yadav and KL Rahul. Despite suffering from cramps, he finished his spell and quite remarkably there was no compromise in pace. While leaving the field, he was seen wiping out tears multiple times. You could see the passion. You could realise why he was crying when Roberts was leaving Lahore.

The passion. The belief. That's what drove Naseem to make Pakistan forget that they were missing Shaheen. Mohammad Rizwan said before the India match, "No one can just come and fill Shaheen's shoes". But here was a teenage tearaway, getting a wicket every 14 balls and going for only seven-an-over. 

But Sharjah, on Wednesday, saw him in a different avatar. The game looked pretty much done and dusted at the end of the penultimate over. Pakistan needed 11 off the final over and on strike was Naseem, who was yet to open his account in T20Is. Fazalhaq Farooqi, who had a brilliant day with the ball, was quite likely to defend 10 against Pakistan's number 10 and 11. But Naseem had other ideas. 

"When I went in to bat I had the belief to hit the sixes. I practice [hitting sixes] and I knew they would bowl yorkers as they had the field up. There needs to be belief, we keep practising in the nets," Naseem stated after the match.  

The clarity of thought and the self-belief were the precursors to those two back-to-back sixes. His heroics reminded Babar Azam of Javed Miandad's iconic 1987 last-ball six off Chetan Sharma. But what makes Naseem's two maximums even more heroic is the fact that Miandad was a proper batter and Naseem was nowhere near that.

'Shah' used to be a title given to emperors and kings of Persia and it's now safe to say that Naseem, true to his name, is the Shah (king or emperor) of hearts in Pakistan.