In his debut Test for Pakistan and on a King Pair — narrowly avoided by grace of the review system — Pakistan's new wicket keeper, Zulqarnain Haider, grittily rode both his luck and his skill to the highest score of the match so far: 88. Congratulations!
(Apparently, Haider intends to donate half of his Test match fees to the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital in memory of his mother, who died of the disease some years ago — which is a really nice gesture.)
Graeme Swann took six wickets, removing Imran Farhat with a delivery Andrew McGlashan of cricinfo claims 'has every right to be the finest of his career'. Congratulations to him too!
Another spinner also had a good day ... but with the bat: Pakistan's Saeed Ajmal produced a half-ton and rather defiantly raised his arm in celebration. As so often happens, he then promptly got out — another Swann victim. Judging by cricinfo's stats, that is Ajmal's highest score by far: his previous one being 10. So congratulations are more than in order.
(Seriously though, when did Pakistani cricketers become unable to play spin? Cf Australia's tedious and normally innocuous part-timer Marcus North also getting six wickets against Pakistan.)
Not so many congratulations goes to Stuart Broad who has been charged with a level two offence under ICC's code of conduct for throwing the ball at Zulqarnain Haider in an 'inappropriate manner'. Commenting the match on television at the time of the incident, Nasser Hussain said (my transcript):
'He's an angry young man, Stuart Broad. He really is. He's had a review turned down and he's questioning the umpire … and then young Haider has played a decent forward defense … I mean, is there any need for that at all?! Absolutely no need for that. You can apologise as much as you want, but just don't do it! It's not needed. Ridiculous! […] Yeah, Bumble, I don't mind the aggression from Stuart Broad; it's part of his skill — his armoury — but certain things he does just winds me up: not to turn around and ask the umpire for a decision; just to throw the ball at a batsman on debut … Ridiculous!'
And Nasser Hussain is right. It was ridiculous. It was also quite, quite silly.
(Zulqarnain Hader can be found on twitter as @cricketer_pak ; Graeme Swann goes under the moniker @Swanny66 )
2 Comments:
That's a nice gesture from the young man isn't it? I meant Haider....
As for Broad...What to say?
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