The rise of Mohammad Saleem Safi: Quit cricket at 16, now bags 6/140 vs India

TimesofIndia.com successful Mullanpur: Three years ago, erstwhile Rana Naved-ul-Hasan arrived astatine Afghanistan's high-performance centre successful Kabul arsenic bowling coach, 1 young accelerated bowler instantly grabbed his attention.

Mohammad Saleem Safi, a lanky pacer from Baghlan province, was bowling with genuine gait and troubling immoderate of Afghanistan's accomplished batters successful the nets."He was touching 145 kph. It excited me. I was successful awe due to the fact that you don't often find genuine accelerated bowlers successful Afghanistan. Yes, determination person been respective mean pacers, but an out-and-out speedy is simply a rarity. Last evening my girl got married, truthful I was not capable to ticker the match, but I followed the unrecorded commentary and felt helium bowled well.

Today, helium has been exceptional. He bowled hard lengths and it was bully to spot him operating successful the precocious 130s," Rana Naved-ul-Hasan tells TimesofIndia.com from Sheikhupura successful Pakistan.

"Saleem saab ki motor garm hone mein thoda waqt lag gaya (It took a portion for Saleem to get into the groove)," laughs Naved-ul-Hasan.The erstwhile Pakistan bowler is close successful his appraisal of the 23-year-old Afghanistan pacer. He bowled good connected Day 1, but lone successful patches.

He was wayward and failed to prolong unit implicit an full implicit aft bowling a mates of bully deliveries. But whenever helium deed the close areas, helium troubled the batters.Before this one-off Test against India, Safi had failed to instrumentality a azygous wicket successful his erstwhile 4 planetary appearances. He had played 1 Test, 2 ODIs and 1 T20I, but ended up bagging six against India.On the opening day, helium claimed the prized wickets of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sai Sudharsan. With the caller ball, helium bowled probing lengths and kept the Indian batters connected their toes.

Jaiswal was strangled down the limb side, portion Sudharsan chased a 142 kph transportation connected the fifth-stump line, edged it behind, and broke the 139-run basal for the 2nd wicket.

On the 2nd day, with the 2nd caller ball, Mohammad Saleem Safi made the shot speech astatine pace. He dismissed centurion Shubman Gill. The Indian captain, who had played a chanceless sound connected the archetypal day, looked a tad rusty. In the implicit earlier helium got out, Gill had drilled Saleem for a mates of delectable boundaries.

But the bowler had the past laugh. He deed the platform hard and extracted bounce, inducing a heavy extracurricular borderline that Afsar Zazai safely caught down the stumps.Then helium forced an mistake successful judgement from Dhruv Jurel. The Indian batter thought the shot was extracurricular the enactment of the stumps and would bounce over. But to Jurel's horror, it nipped backmost conscionable capable to clang into the apical of disconnected stump.Safi had been relentless each greeting and was yet rewarded with wickets. Then came the biggest infinitesimal of his cricketing vocation erstwhile helium recovered the extracurricular borderline of debutant Manav Suthar to implicit his maiden five-wicket haul. He was pumped. He did a tiny thigh with his hands raised, touched his forehead to the crushed successful celebration, and was past mobbed by teammates. He added different wicket to his file by cleaning up Mohammed Siraj and finished with career-best figures of 6 for 140."Last twelvemonth helium got injured. He is coming backmost aft a agelong wounded lay-off. He looked successful bully rhythm. The inexperience was rather visible, but the much helium plays, the amended helium volition become," said a arrogant Naved-ul-Hasan.Naved-ul-Hasan says determination is simply a tectonic displacement towards accelerated bowling successful Afghanistan and credits the robust home operation and ever-improving infrastructure."The satellite has lone seen enigma spinners coming retired of Afghanistan, but present determination is simply a monolithic shift.

An yearly fast-bowling endowment hunt is being organised, and astatine the U-19 and A-team levels, determination are galore players successful the pipeline," helium said.Between February and November, Afghanistan hosts 7 home tournaments spanning each 3 formats, with Rana Naved-ul-Hasan actively participating successful endowment recognition for the improvement programme. Responsibility past falls connected the nationalist high-performance centre to scout standout players from the home circuit, creating a structured pathway to hole them for national-team selection."They person six teams successful first-class cricket. Then determination is Division Two, wherever teams play three-day cricket. They are precise bully successful white-ball cricket, but successful the longer format they are inactive learning. However, they are connected the close path," said Naved, who enjoyed a salient vocation for Pakistan betwixt 2003 and 2010, peculiarly successful ODIs."Take the illustration of Saleem. He has this hunger. I person travelled crossed Afghanistan and the occurrence successful the belly among these kids is unmatched," helium said.

Naved-ul-Hasan and erstwhile Pakistan opener Imran Farhat's occupation astatine the show centre is to physique abstracted teams for each 3 formats."The civilization of T20 cricket is stronger. Obviously, it is the format that has fixed them stars. But the main extremity is to hole prime accelerated bowlers for Test cricket. I person selected 8 to 10 accelerated bowlers. Saleem and Ziaur Rahman Sharifi are playing successful this Test. The people is to make a excavation of accelerated bowlers who tin service Afghanistan crossed each 3 formats," helium said.But determination are challenges for the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) arsenic well. Many promising cricketers person near the crippled due to the fact that of fiscal difficulties.In an interrogation with the ACB successful 2020, Mohammad Saleem Safi admitted that fiscal issues had erstwhile pushed him distant from cricket."I started playing cricket astir a twelvemonth agone (2019), but owed to terrible economical and fiscal difficulties, I americium struggling to determination forward.

However, I americium inactive putting a batch of effort into my cricket. Cricket is precise peculiar to me," helium had said.All these years later, Saleem Safi's hard enactment has paid off. Afghanistan's open-chested predator was the destroyer-in-chief connected a level Mullanpur wicket nether the harsh sun. His effort has besides enactment a grin connected Rana Naved-ul-Hasan's face, giving him different crushed to observe the enactment being done successful Kabul."It was truthful satisfying. An Afghanistan pacer clocking 140 kph and taking six wickets against India. A cleanable time for me," helium said.