How Ibrahim Zadran turned Afghanistan from hit-or-get-out T20 side into formidable ODI batting unit | Cricket-world-cup News

But Zadran chooses to try something risky. Although it’s a different matter it’s executed so beautifully that it hardly feels like he’s taking a risk.

Follow all the action from the Cricket World Cup 2023 on our special World Cup section. You can also find the latest stats, like the top scorer and the highest wicket-taker of the current edition, upcoming World Cup fixtures and the points table on the site.

Very casually, Zadran rocks back, lifts his bat to the shoulder, opens the bat-face at the last instant and hits a stunning ramp shot. The ball flies over ’keeper Josh Inglis’s head, one bounce and to the fence.

Cummins simply stands there, smiling wryly.

Like his captain, Mitchell Starc too thinks the ball has come out alright. It’s fast, aimed at the leg-stump and is dipping awkwardly at Zadran’s feet. The Afghan opener just flicks his wrist and the ball flies into the top tier of the Vijay Merchant Pavilion beyond square-leg.

Starc, now, simply stands there, smiling wryly.

Those two shots, played 34 overs apart, captured the minimalist nature of Zadran’s batting. In between that four and six, he held together Afghanistan’s innings against an Australian side that was unbeaten in 5 matches coming into this tie.

He did so by putting in the hard yards – running 46 singles, and six 2s on another day of sapping humidity and moderate air quality in Mumbai. And for that, he was rewarded with a superb century – the first by an Afghan player in a World Cup.

It can be argued that Zadran’s unbeaten 129 off 143 balls came at a slow pace that never allowed Afghanistan to go beyond the third gear until Rashid Khan provided fireworks towards the end. But those will be countered with the same defence that Andy Flower put up for Jonathan Trott – now the Afghanistan coach – during the 2011 World Cup when he too was accused of being too slow.

“He stabilises our innings,” Flower had said of Trott in 2011. The same can be said for Zadran who, in many ways, remains an anomaly in Afghan cricket.

Unlike most of his teammates, Zadran is among the first few homegrown players to be selected for the Afghanistan national team. Like his cousin Mujeeb ur Rehman, who opened the bowling under lights, he wasn’t born in Pakistan and did not learn to play in the refugee camps like a bulk of his teammates.

Instead, Zadran began playing at the academy set up by his uncle – Noor Ali Zadran – on a 2000 square metre family farm in Khost in Southeastern Afghanistan.

Zadran was nine when he saw Noor, himself an Afghan international, score a half-century against India at the T20 World Cup in the West Indies. That was the beginning of a lifelong affair and Noor himself became his nephew’s coach, teaching him the art on a land that was meant for cultivating crops and sheltering cattle.

Tuesday’s moment has been a decade in the making but Zadran wasn’t alone in this journey. All along, he was accompanied by Mujeeb who was the first to become a household name due to his exploits in the IPL. However, those who had seen Zadran from close quarters were never in doubt about his quality.

In a side that’s brimming with power hitters, Zadran relies on his technique and has the mindset to bat for long periods. He gave a glimpse of his abilities in the Under-19 World Cup in 2018 when, as a 16-year-old, he was Afghanistan’s top scorer.

By the time he was 17, Zadran had cemented his place in Afghanistan’s Test, ODI and T20 teams and post-pandemic, he’s shown his full potential, scoring at an average of a little more than 60.

Zadran has been central to Trott’s quest to turn Afghanistan from a temperamental, hit-or-get-out T20 side into a formidable ODI unit that can adjust to the pace of the 50-over game.

He has provided steadiness at the top of the order while his opening partner Rahmanullah Gurbaz does the power-hitting. Zadran spent 73 minutes on the crease to score 28 runs off 48 balls to lay the ground for a winning score against England.

In the tense run chase against Pakistan, he played for two-and-a-half hours and scored a match-winning 87 and in another successful run chase against Sri Lanka, Zadran was out in the middle for 73 minutes, facing 57 balls and scoring 39 important runs.

He might not be obsessed with the idea of clearing the boundary off every ball but Zadran’s ability to constantly rotate the strike has taken the pressure off his teammates, like it happened early on in their innings against Australia.

In the sixth over, Gurbaaz tried to pull Josh Hazlewood but the ball whizzed past his shoulder. It was the first wild shot attempted by either of the batsmen and Zadran immediately walked up to his partner to calm him down. The next ball, he sprinted for a quick single to get Gurbaaz off the strike and minimise the risk.

This doesn’t mean Zadran lacks the firepower to hit. As he showed with those two shots off Cummins and Starc, Zadran can clear the fence. Just that the non-violence stroke maker that he is, he does it with minimum fuss, and impeccable timing.