Abdullah Shafique: A new craftsman of Test cricket in making

Pakistani soil is the one that often seems more fertile to produce the mighty pace bowlers who can go after any strongest batting lineup in the world. But, on the other hand, the rise of a 22-year-0ld guy as a Test specialist prodigy in a generation of cricketers that is leaning more towards the glamourous franchise leagues is obviously like a blessing in disguise for the traditional format of the game. Yes, I am talking about none other than the young blessing to Test cricket, Abdullah Shafique.

Watching this Sialkot-born sensation batting is like a treat for many experts of the game and also the former veterans who played the game. Being brought up in a cricketing family of former Pakistani first-class cricketer Shafique Ahmed, cricket always remained like something Abdullah had in his veins since he held the plastic bat for the first time in his childhood.

Perfect defence, calculated front foot, amazing hand-eye coordination, patience, and perseverance, all these are the elements Shafique is equipped with. Being equipped with these is not the only thing, this lad has also a good sense of responsibility and understanding about how and when to use all these elements to bring the team into a comfort zone from any unfavourable situation.

Shafique took the team to win in an almost lost Test match

Pakistan is currently on a tour of Sri Lanka for the two-match Test series. They faced Dimuth Karunaratne & co. during the first of the two-match Test series and the visitors were in a miserable condition having a mammoth target of 342 runs in the fourth innings. But the way this Punjabi lad painted a 522-minute-long and must-require innings of 160 runs off 408 balls for his team was like watching Pablo Picasso playing with brush and colours to rejuvenate a dull and off-colored canvas.

Eventually, Abdullah ended up similarly rejuvenating the dull and off-coloured canvas in Galle Test for visitors and became a major difference between a defeat and Pakistan. Batting in Test cricket has always been a craft, the craft which has been carried away by some talented craftsmen in the past with their own unique skills and unprecedented colors of talent.

Born with cricket in blood veins

Cricket in Abdullah’s blood was recognized by his father in his son’s early childhood. Once, the senior Shafique also talked about the amazing god-gifted cricketing instinct of his oldest son.

“I’d just come back and saw Abdullah shadow-practising with a plastic bat. He hadn’t seen me yet and I spotted him with the perfect stance, getting his front foot perfectly and pretending to play a front-foot defence. I couldn’t believe it. He looked like a kid who’d been training for three-six months. I immediately asked my wife if Abdullah had been playing cricket with someone,” said Shafique.

There’s a famous phrase, “a father knows better” and Shafique was the personification of this phrase who later went on to groom his son to be one of the finest journeys in the longest format of the game. That too for a cricketing nation that barely remembers any Test specialist after the legendary Haneef Mohammad.

It’s neither a comparison nor a contrasting of Abdullah with Haneef Mohammed, it’s just like understanding how you can prepare yourself to carry a baton of traditions of the game even in a completely evolved generation of cricket in the 21st century.

Senior Shafique knew all about his son from the beginning

Now coming back to Shafique’s role as a father, he understood all the qualities of his son and worked on them very carefully and minutely. Senior Shafique took modern-day Abdullah to Sialkot’s Late Amir Waseem Academy in Punjab. It was a crucial juncture of his cricketing journey that happened to occur only in teenage-period for Abdullah as he got a chance of training there with the players of the senior team.

Having a platform, perfect training, and enumerated guidance, the then 16-year-old guy made it to the Sialkot Under-16 very early. It was the very place where he shone into the sights of veterans of the game and the coaches who were previously the cricketers.

Then, four years later, arrives the morning of 2nd December 2019 in the cricketing career of 20-year-old Abdullah Shafique. The morning on which he woke up with a debut call in first-class cricket. It was the day when this ultimate modern-day class was introduced to the oldest format of the game in the domestic circuit of Pakistan.

Started his first-class career in style

The raw prodigy from Sialkot donned the first-class cap of Central Punjab in the 29^th match of the Quaid-E-Azam Trophy 2019-20, it was the match in which he played against Southern Punjab. Abdullah amazed everyone with the display of his determination and dedication in his cricketing life’s first ever first-class match. The then skipper of Central Punjab Ahmed Shehzad sent him to bat at the crucial number three position.

Debutant Junior Shafique sojourned there in the middle for 280 minutes and played an amazing knock of 133 runs with 16 fours and a six to end up as the highest scorer of the inning for his team. On the back of his consecutive excellence in domestic cricket, the 21-year-old made his Test debut just after playing three first-class matches. It is always a big achievement for any aspiring cricketer in the world.

The day when the cricketing world witnessed the rise of a star and a new class of Test cricket

Eventually, the international cricketing fraternity came to know about this amazing class of Test cricket when the Australian team toured Pakistan for three-match Test series earlier in March 2022. Both teams were playing the first match of the series at Rawalpindi. Everybody was amazed after seeing how comfortably a 22-year-old young batter of only two Tests old was emerging as trouble for one of the finest bowling attacks in the world of cricket. The very attack included the senior and experienced pacers in the form of Mitchell Starc and Aussie skipper Pat Cummins himself.

Abdullah played an amazing unbeaten knock of 136 runs and stitched a partnership of 252 runs with Imam-ul-Haq in the fourth innings of a drawn fixture at Rawalpindi. This excellence was followed by his 465-minute marathon stay on the crease alongside skipper Babar Azam in the second Test of the series at Karachi’s National Stadium.

It can be said without any second opinion that Abdullah Shafique is the next belief Test batting after Rahul Dravid on whom sub-continent can count on at any turf in Test cricket.