Abdul Razzaq the bloodsucking vampire
He is mechanical. Like an automaton, he marches up to the crease like a soldier and delivers the ball. He is emotionless. If he takes a wicket he will give a wry smile and that’s that. No questions asked. If he’s being hit all over the park, he would not
care less. He would come in and bowl without a care in the World. What does he do when he’s happy? He probably says, “I am happy”.
Some people prefer to remain on the sidelines. They enjoy the solitude, away from all the limelight. He does not flick his hair like Boom Boom Afridi, who is a bundle of emotion. Razzaq is reserved. He saves up all his energy to unleash it when required,
similar to a hamster storing food in its mouth.
Some say he has hydraulic legs and even on a roll he would not do a Boom Boom manoeuvre. He would simply break into a grin to show a little gap in his teeth, sloppily relaxing the muscles of his face to break into a smile. He would go away, people would
not notice. They would happily move on. Then he would come back one day and play a ballistic knock, a match winning knock.
He would make headlines, everyone would talk about him. However, I doubt he ever reads the papers. He seems unfazed by anything that goes around him. He seems to be lost in his own little World. Roars from crowd seem to be a Mozart symphony to his ears as
he stands on the pitch playing his role. It is probably like a 2 dimensional 32 bit videogame where he simply has to dodge the fielders or easier still, hit the ball beyond them.
He chooses the easier way. He hits sixes. That too, ten sixes in a knock of a 100 odd runs. Between those sixes he chooses to hit fours as well. He can’t be bothered to run. That takes too much energy, too much effort. Like a boy with pimples lost in his
video game, doing what he does best, Razzaq unravels the beast within him. He is formidable in the battlefield, where his opponents probably do not realize that he is a man on a mission. He has locked on target. He has to win the match for Pakistan.
Even if that means, that he will have to shift gears between the innings. Defending when required and hitting out of the park when required, he would do that.
Razzaq came off today. He was a juggernaut. His timing replicated Swiss precision. He shifted gears from clenched fists to an automatic machine gun. Standing aloof, on his own little island detached from the happenings of the World around him. He was far
from perfect, far from beautiful. Yet there was something magical about his innings, something ethereal.
He came to the crease when Pakistan stood trembling at 136-5 in the thirtieth over with still another 151 runs to win in 20 over’s with half of his team back in the pavilion. With 30 runs to win in less than 15 balls to be precise, and only one wicket remaining
Razzaq was lake placid. It did not seem to affect him that three players before him were run out. He could not care less. He knew, he had to win the match for Pakistan. Of the final 18 bowls delivered, Razzaq played 17. Of the previous 29 deliveries, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Razzaq-c84421
faced 21.
He sucked the sap out of the South African side. Like a bloodless vampire. His focus was mind numbing. He tamed the South Africans and most importantly he made everyone realize why Pakistan cricket is loved. It is these moments of sheer brilliance, of character
and mental strength. These moments when this team manage to scrape a win from near impossible circumstances like the cornered tigers.
It is easy to find a team winning a match with a number of good performances but it is indeed rare for a team to find a person, who single-handedly wins a match for them. For http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755, Abdul Razzaq was without a doubt the knight in shining armour. He let
his emotions loose as he completed his job for his team. He won the match from near impossible circumstances. Now that I think about it, he probably would have found a way to win the match even if the side were bowled out.
For this simply, I like this bloodsucking vampire.
A lot.
Edward Cullen on the contrary, has caused some irreparable damage to my brain cells.
(The writer is an aspiring entrepreneur who during the night transforms into a cricket fanatic. Legend has it, that he bowled the Greek god Zeus out thrice in the same over. He relies on fiction to produce humour for a living.)
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