ONCE, Sohaib Maqsood collected the balls Inzamam-ul-Haq swatted to the boundary with disdain. Now, he is being compared to him.
Both were born in Multan, although 17 years apart. Inzamam played 120 Tests and Maqsood has yet to make his debut.
But it isn’t hard to see why cricket aficionados already see a chunk of Inzamam in Maqsood – he is tall and strapping and blessed with an uncomplicated approach to hitting the ball hard.
South Africans saw Inzamam first-hand in 42 of the 495 matches he played for Pakistan across all formats from 1991 to 2007. Today, in a T20 between SA and Pakistan at the Wanderers, they will get their first chance to run the rule over Maqsood.
Maqsood has not shied away from putting himself in the frame with Inzamam. On October 24, he tweeted a photograph of the two of them together that he captioned, “With my hero”. But he balks at being labelled Inzamam 2.0.
“I never attempted to copy his way of batting,” Maqsood told Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper on August 19.
“The only time I really watched Inzamam closely was when he scored a century against Bangladesh during the Test in Multan .
“I was one of the ball-pickers placed on the boundary, and Inzamam hit 20 fours and one six in that innings.”
Pakistan team manager Moin Khan played 57 of his 69 Tests in the same 11 as Inzamam. He was reluctant to say whether Maqsood could fill Inzamam’s boots, which were big in every sense.
“It’s too early for me to say because Inzamam did a lot for Pakistan cricket,” Khan said yesterday. “Maqsood’s style is very similar and he looks a bit like him, but he has a long way to go to match Inzamam.”
No Pakistan player has scored more Test centuries than Inzamam’s 25 and he is their leading runscorer in ODIs with 11701 – the format in which he holds the Pakistan record of 375 caps.
But, for some of SA’s players, the comparison is valid.
“Imran and Hashim watched a lot of ‘Inzi’ and they have said Maqsood reminds them of him,” Faf du Plessis said yesterday.
Maqsood admitted to seeking Inzamam’s advice at Pakistan’s training camp before their one-day series against SA in the Emirates earlier this month.
Whatever the big fella said worked. Maqsood scored 56 and 53 in the two games he played.
But best Maqsood does not take any advice on running between the wickets from his lumbering compatriot. Inzamam was run out just 46 times in his 551 innings in international cricket. That equates to 8.34% of his dismissals.
The speedy Jonty Rhodes, who inflicted Inzamam’s most infamous dismissal when he dived into the stumps in Brisbane during the 1992 World Cup, has a runout percentage of 5.33%.
AB de Villiers’ is 6.49%.
Proteas face the big-hitter
ONCE, Sohaib Maqsood collected the balls Inzamam-ul-Haq swatted to the boundary with disdain. Now, he is being compared to him.
Both were born in Multan, although 17 years apart. Inzamam played 120 Tests and Maqsood has yet to make his debut.
But it isn’t hard to see why cricket aficionados already see a chunk of Inzamam in Maqsood – he is tall and strapping and blessed with an uncomplicated approach to hitting the ball hard.
South Africans saw Inzamam first-hand in 42 of the 495 matches he played for Pakistan across all formats from 1991 to 2007. Today, in a T20 between SA and Pakistan at the Wanderers, they will get their first chance to run the rule over Maqsood.
Maqsood has not shied away from putting himself in the frame with Inzamam. On October 24, he tweeted a photograph of the two of them together that he captioned, “With my hero”. But he balks at being labelled Inzamam 2.0.
“I never attempted to copy his way of batting,” Maqsood told Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper on August 19.
“The only time I really watched Inzamam closely was when he scored a century against Bangladesh during the Test in Multan .
“I was one of the ball-pickers placed on the boundary, and Inzamam hit 20 fours and one six in that innings.”
Pakistan team manager Moin Khan played 57 of his 69 Tests in the same 11 as Inzamam. He was reluctant to say whether Maqsood could fill Inzamam’s boots, which were big in every sense.
“It’s too early for me to say because Inzamam did a lot for Pakistan cricket,” Khan said yesterday. “Maqsood’s style is very similar and he looks a bit like him, but he has a long way to go to match Inzamam.”
No Pakistan player has scored more Test centuries than Inzamam’s 25 and he is their leading runscorer in ODIs with 11701 – the format in which he holds the Pakistan record of 375 caps.
But, for some of SA’s players, the comparison is valid.
“Imran and Hashim watched a lot of ‘Inzi’ and they have said Maqsood reminds them of him,” Faf du Plessis said yesterday.
Maqsood admitted to seeking Inzamam’s advice at Pakistan’s training camp before their one-day series against SA in the Emirates earlier this month.
Whatever the big fella said worked. Maqsood scored 56 and 53 in the two games he played.
But best Maqsood does not take any advice on running between the wickets from his lumbering compatriot. Inzamam was run out just 46 times in his 551 innings in international cricket. That equates to 8.34% of his dismissals.
The speedy Jonty Rhodes, who inflicted Inzamam’s most infamous dismissal when he dived into the stumps in Brisbane during the 1992 World Cup, has a runout percentage of 5.33%.
AB de Villiers’ is 6.49%.
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