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Abdul Razzaq - The unemotional Boom Boom

by Gaurav Sethi

What does Razzaq do when he’s happy? He possibly says, I’m happy, and that’s that. He doesn’t do the Boom Boom manoeuvre, at best, he shows that little gap in the teeth, as his face sloppily breaks into a smile. I like players like Razzaq and Klusener. But they tend to go away, and when they’re away, most of us won’t notice they’ve gone away.

Then they come back, and do what they will, and everyone loves them for a day. But I’m not sure that they like them. They love them, and that’s fleeting, like the headlines. Today Razzaq is the headline, that will make him flinch. He’s a player, far comfier being the subtext.

And that in itself is the undoing of Razzaq. He will bat and bowl, where the team wants him. So he opens the bowling, tomorrow, they could make him open the batting. It’ll be a wonder if they can make him open his mouth.

And when he does, it’s in Urdu, not in English. So, no, Razzaq will not be captain. If they run out of captains, they will make a dodo debut, and cap him as captain. But not Razzaq.

This is surprising to me: Going by some of Razzaq’s innings, there’s some solid equilibrium to his mental. He can stay, stay, stay and then go nuts, nuts, nuts. In the blink of an eye, he can shift from clenched fists to an assault riffle taking aim. And that when the man isn’t even empowered, when he’s on his own little island. Or is that Razzaq, aloof, by himself, the man who stands outside the huddle.

Today Razzaq came off. His timing was Swiss made, and his leaves, they were springlike. They were funny too, and that’s what is so damn endearing about Razzaq, he can be funny, unintentionally so – an innings of his, when it goes the distance, will be flawed, and in those flaws will be moments of demented cricketing beauty. My pick, when he got all awkward, opening his legs, and letting the ball through. It appeared he even farted.

And then he went nuts. With 9 down, and only Shoaib Akhtar to be run out (after Haider, Riaz, Ajmal ), Razzaq was Lake Placid. Come to think of it, if they were bowled out, Razzaq would have still found a way to win the match.

5 comments:

Gireesh Subramaniam said...

Nice..I should say that the live tweeting of the Razzaq's innings was also very good.

Btw,how difficult is it to write a post on a topic ,after you have tweeted almost everything that had occured to you on the topic in the last one hour ?

Gireesh Subramaniam said...

Nice..I should say that the live tweeting of the Razzaq's innings was also very good.

Btw,how difficult is it to write a post on a topic ,after you have tweeted almost everything that had occured to you on the topic in the last one hour ?

Gaurav Sethi said...

Thanks GS.

As I said in the post, I like Razzaq. So this post was about him, both as a guy and a player, in addition to today's innings. Writing just on today's innings, I dunno if I'd have liked to try just that - that's been done on twitter and yeah, there are the highlights.

But if you're riding the high, or a low, it's cool to write, in fact, it's a great time to write. Twitter helps it come together for me moodwise.

Govind Raj said...

And then he went nuts. With 9 down, and only Shoaib Akhtar to be run out (after Haider, Riaz, Ajmal ), Razzaq was Lake Placid. Come to think of it, if they were bowled out, Razzaq would have still found a way to win the match.

A beautiful piece of complement !

Gaurav Sethi said...

Cheers Govind