Here’s to you, Mohammed Amir, cricket loves you more than you will know
Mohammed Amir has lived an entire career in the lonely fourth dimension between nostalgia, promise, and reality — between what can be and…
Mohammed Amir has lived an entire career in the lonely fourth dimension between nostalgia, promise, and reality — between what can be and what could’ve been.
We are suckers for nostalgia. We live every moment trying our hardest to suspend time, turning every which way to intercept reality and send it back the other way. When something reminds us of the past, we hold that moment close.
Fast bowlers, the kind who run with the wind, hair flapping behind the head, nostrils flared, ready to breathe fire, are artists from cricket’s yore. Whenever we see a new one, we speak of him as the successor of someone from the days when true fast bowling was fashionable. Mohammed Amir is a tall, lanky, left-arm fast bowler from Pakistan, with a smooth, effortless action. I hear you silently muttering Wasim Akram. In those six months sandwiched between the spells at MCG and Lord’s, we all did. And of course, there was the headband, straight out the Dennis Lillee Fan Starter Pack.
Amir made his test debut in 2009. T20 had seeped deep into cricket’s consciousness — to the extent where two T20 world cups would be held within nine months — and there he was, running in thirty yards and seaming the red ball past Alastair Cook’s bat at Lord’s. It seemed fitting. Lord’s is a stadium, an institution if you will, completely besotted with the imperial traditions of test cricket, and a fast bowler was bending his back at the Home of Cricket to bring back a bit of old-school romance. He made it to the Honour’s Board in his first attempt.
Amir was what we cricket tragics hoped all modern cricketers would be — in touch with the 21st century and cricket’s evolution, but using all their skills to revitalize the purest form of the game.
And then he fell. For five years, we didn’t see him or hear of him.
When Amir returned from his exile, he came a few yards slower, but far wiser, and more in control of his craft. Part of it was lost on us adoring, breathless, unreasonable fans. Compared with an all-time great before he left, he was judged against the Amir of old on his return.
Mohammed Amir, our Amir, was someone who got us to the edge of our seats, nervous and excited in equal measure, giving us a window into when test cricket was at its primal best. We weren’t quite overjoyed with this Aaqib Javed version of someone who was once the next Wasim. In all our anticipation, we had forgotten that life doesn’t come with a pause-and-play feature.
In limited-overs cricket, he took no time to remind the sport of what it had missed, but test cricket was a little unforgiving. In his youth, Amir had molded himself as a bowler who could bowl back of a length and take the ball past a batsman’s chest. At 132-ish kmph, the ball rarely crossed the waist, and batsmen got more time to leave the good deliveries.
Yet, he had enough in him to write a soaring epilogue on his romance with test cricket at its cathedral. He took six wickets in the 2018 test against England, the last of which won Pakistan the match.
This wasn’t some big, ten-wicket haul return, but this is the very ground where, all those years back, he had left the sport with a bowed head, banished to the graveyard of police investigations, tabloid news channels, and national dailies. It was a tearful goodbye from both sides — angry, disappointed, but in hope that one day, he can find his way back.
He did. Moments like these make sport worth following. Osman Samiuddin may or may not update his seminal book on the history of Pakistan cricket, but if he does, Amir’s resurgence will find a page.
In keeping with 2019 and its trends, Amir has announced his retirement through a YouTube video, and it makes for poignant viewing. His love for test cricket stands out across the 150 seconds he speaks for.
Pakistan cricket is driven by individual genius, and Amir is aware of his place in the brighter pages of their history. He knows what those first 50 wickets — he was still 18 then — meant. He knows the role he played to take Pakistan to the top of the test rankings.
He retires just when test cricket is about to take a leap of faith into a new realm in the quest for relevance and hence, survival. The Test Championships come with a set of cosmetic changes too — name and number on jerseys and what not — all to make long-form cricket more watchable.
It is poetic and sad, because the most watchable sight in test cricket, is a fast bowler, running like the wind, sending a bright red cherry past the outside edge of a technically proficient batsman. Mohammed Amir, for much of his playing career, had mastered that art form.
Go well, Amir. Allow us one last what could’ve been, for we never got to see you in a test match against India. Your pace, swing, and general craftsmanship vs the resolve of Pujara and the bravura of Virat, would’ve lit up test cricket.
Here’s hoping that the next you — yes, I know you’re just 27 — sees the best of test cricket, and test cricket sees the best of him.