The rockstar of Afghan cricket

Rohit Mahajan

Tribune News Service

Perth, March 2

Shapoor Zadran has a frown on his face. His brow is deeply creased. A vertical furrow divides his forehead in two. He seems to be in a state of anger. His eyes, open wide, are wild, hawkish. All this seems to magnify his physical presence — it makes him seem eight feet tall and broad like a barn door. It makes him seem like a very dangerous man indeed, not someone you’d want to meet in a dark alley.

But Zadran speaks words that are soft and gentle. His favourite descriptive term, for everything he wants to speak about, is ‘very much’. He’s a ‘very much’ fan of Shoaib Akhtar. He ‘very much’ likes to hit sixers. He ‘very much’ likes the bounce of the wicket at the WACA. He has ‘very much’ jazba, passion, for his chosen cricketing skill. He has ‘very much’ long hair, and his six-year-old son has ‘very much’ long hair as well.
Zadran is very much the rockstar of the Afghan team. He’s very much a sight to behold when he runs in to the batsmen. He runs from close to 40 yards away, a frown on his face, his hair flying like the hair of an ancient hero on a galloping horse, rushing on to slay his foes. He jumps high before the delivery stride; his front elbow is flung forward and high, reminding you faintly of the action of Akhtar, Zadran’s favourite bowler. Zadran then gathers every bit of his strength and flings the ball at the batsman. The violent effort throws him off balance. When he appeals, glaring at the batsman and the umpire, he seems to be commanding rather than imploring for a positive decision.
Zadran, who has six sisters and four brothers, says he’s angry when he bowls. Is this all an act, manipulating watchers and writers into viewing him as a modern romantic-warrior?
Superstar Zadran
Twenty-seven-year old Zadran, Afghanistan’s left-arm pace demon, is the first superstar of Afghan cricket.
The other day, a ball from Zadran broke the bat of Mahela Jayawardene, the Sri Lankan star. It was probably an old bat and had it coming. That particular ball wasn’t really that fast. But the fans of Zadran — yes, there exists such a horde — believe that it was the force of his bowling that broke the bat. “Cricket is hugely popular among the Afghan population here,” says Azghar, a security man of Afghan origin whose honour it was to escort Zadran from the nets to the dressing room. “It’s like Indian fans being so fanatical about their team. For us, Shapoor Zadran is the popular player.”
“People of my country support me too much,” says Zadran. “Many people copy my long hair, and even my son Mohammad copies it.”
But unlike his hero Akhtar, Zadran prefers the quiet life — he prays and likes Islamic books, he says.
Zadran was almost lost to his fans and cricket because his family wasn’t keen that he played the game. “There was no hope, because we had no team,” he says. “So my family was not keen about me playing this sport.”
Zadran, born in Afghanistan’s Logar region, found himself in Pakistan as a child because his own country was torn by strife. He started playing in Peshawar, playing in the streets and dusty lanes and grounds. He became a fan of Akhtar, and adopted a very long run-up. When former Pakistan bowler Iqbal Sikander became the coach of Afghanistan, Shapoor moved back to his own country.
Remember that World T20 game from 2012 in Sri Lanka, when the wild-eyed Shapoor rattled Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag? Remember the ball that beat Gambhir for pace, or the one that Sehwag snicked to the wicketkeeper? Remember Zadran hitting the 150kmph mark in that game?
Many of us do, but not all. Many experts don’t know this man with the thrilling run-up and furious looks.
Today, a cricket journalist clicked a selfie of himself with Zadran and put it up on facebook.com. Barry Richards, the South African great, reacted to the photograph thus: “Shapoor who??!!”
This anonymity is the fate of this exciting fast bowler, a refugee from violence as a child, now an angry young man with the ball who bowls with his heart and body and soul. The avenues of his progress are closed because the big nations don’t play Afghanistan, a minor team. But cricket has given him much. “It’s good that all of us are now contracted with the Afghan cricket board and get a monthly salary,” says Zadran. That salary, in the region of $2,200 a month, is a good deal of money in Afghanistan, but it pales before the money made by the players of the big cricket nations. This angry man must content himself by trying to knock off the heads of his millionaire rivals.