His Test debut in Perth came against all logic, but Aamer Jamal learnt his lessons quickly and finished as Pakistan’s best bowler
Danyal Rasool19-Dec-2023The days in the lead-up to the Perth Test featured a fair bit of uncertainty around the Pakistan bowling attack. The options were limited, but even so, the side they put out was surprising.There was no spinner. Mohammad Hafeez later – after the Test – said the only available option, Noman Ali, had an injury. Fast bowler Mohammad Wasim was considered too risky a prospect for red-ball cricket despite looking sharp in the nets, and instead of buying into Hasan Ali’s highs, Pakistan opted to shrink away, looking at his lows. It meant there were two new names on the team sheet: Aamer Jamal and Khurram Shahzad. Medium-fast seamers, really – not once did either touch 140kph on the speed gun in the Test match.Expecting such an inexperienced bowling attack to take 20 Australian wickets in Perth would have gone against history. Of the ten times visiting sides have achieved the feat in the city, six involved the great fast-bowling attacks of West Indies and South Africa, a further two the ascendant India side of more recent vintage, and only once – New Zealand in 1985 – has it been done without a specialist spinner in the XI.Related
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So breaking that long-term duck in Australia – there was little hope.Except Jamal doesn’t think that way, especially not while in Australia.Seven years ago, he had pitched up on these shores after failing to break into the first-class system following a stint with the Under-19s in Pakistan. Opportunity had presented itself on the other side of the country from Perth in Hawkesbury, where he played grade cricket for six months.Unable to afford accommodation, he put up at the home of brothers Pat and Chris Lawrence, his Hawkesbury team-mates. Despite the cultural and geographical differences, they would have recognised the three had in common one important thing: a love for the game and a desire to pursue it.The seven years since have involved many further sacrifices from Jamal. He returned to Pakistan in the hopes of winning selection to an Under-23 squad, and took to working as a taxi driver to continue to fund his cricketing dreams. It got better. He was called up to the T20I side during England’s visit for seven T20Is last year, somewhat contentiously because he hadn’t played much T20 cricket at the time, and the little he’d played had seen him concede at 9.17 an over. He wasn’t a serious candidate for selection to the T20 World Cup in Australia the following month, either.But what he lacked in numbers, he made up for with heart and nerve, just about keeping it together to keep a charging Moeen Ali at bay; tasked with defending 14 in the final over, he allowed England just eight, bowling four dot balls. He played the next match and leaked 30 in two overs, only returning when, with Pakistan’s first-choice team at the World Cup, they sent a second XI of sorts to the Asian Games. It was probably just as well that the eyes were on Hyderabad rather than Hangzhou, though. A horror over at the death from Jamal saw him concede 23 in five balls against Afghanistan, which knocked Pakistan out of the tournament in the semi-final.ESPNcricinfo LtdThose performances can keep players out of the national set-up for significant periods of time, so when Jamal made his Test debut barely ten weeks later, he wasn’t going to quibble over whether the moment was just right, or whether the pitch suited him. As he told Channel 7, this wasn’t the first time he was in a corner. “There’s always hope,” Jamal had said.Because Jamal recognises better than most people that nothing is inevitable.But he began the day looking every inch the nervous starter, his captain Shan Masood using him for two short spells before turning away for much of the first day. Jamal had tried to do the right things, the sort of things you’re supposed to do in Perth. Land it on a length. Go full in pursuit of swing. But the pace wasn’t there and, in truth, neither was the quality Jamal can showcase at his best. It hadn’t worked.No bother. Evidence suggests Jamal feels that just because something doesn’t work doesn’t mean you have failed. It’s merely time to try something else. This time, he put fielders out on the boundary and began banging them in short. It wasn’t pretty, but cricketing success isn’t often found on well-lit boulevards on high streets. There will be dark alleys and dingy streets. Sometimes you will wonder if you are coming out the other side. But Jamal has a tendency to find his way. Before the day was done, he had removed Travis Head, as well as the game’s only centurion, David Warner.He declared later that day that Pakistan’s goal was to remove Australia’s last five inside the first hour the following morning. That didn’t age quite so well when Pakistan failed to take a wicket in the first hour.4:28
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However, Jamal hadn’t bowled at all in that hour.In his first over, he cleaned up Alex Carey up with one of the deliveries of the Test match. It angled in from around the wicket, drifting slightly before landing on middle and off before seaming away from the outside edge and knocking off stump back without disturbing the other bail. This was the extra you need in Perth, and the heights Jamal backs himself to hit.His confidence up, he kept going, his pace much higher than it was the previous day. Much higher, indeed, than any other Pakistan fast bowler. While Mohammad Hafeez pointedly referred to “the senior bowlers” having a poor Test match, and questions mark around Shaheen Shah Afridi’s pace, Jamal was extending every muscle fibre to get more out of his body. He took six of the final seven wickets, becoming just the second Pakistani debutant to return a six-for in Australia. And though the first day saw him spray the ball around slightly, experience – and a narrow margin for error – made Jamal a fast learner. Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood bowl hard lengths outside off stump, so he will too! Off 78 such balls, he allowed just 31 runs and picked up four wickets.None of this, though, was close to enough, as Australia made emphatically clear when they blew Pakistan away on the fourth evening, demonstrating the gulf in quality between the sides – at least in those conditions – and showing how much Jamal and Shahzad still have to learn. Jamal and Shahzad had merely been the warm-up acts to the Australian maestros – scruffy kids in fancy restaurants who aren’t quite sure they belong, while Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood are ordering hors-d’œuvres.It will take Pakistan plenty of time to come close to that level, but if they fell well short it was not for want of trying. And while much of the discourse around Pakistan has labelled them no-hopers in Australia over this summer, former Hawkesbury club cricketer and taxi driver Aamer Jamal knows there’s no such thing. .