Family of Haseeb Hameed relish his dream debut

Young opener Haseeb Hameed has impressed a lot of critics with his gritty batting in his debut Test. Making the Test debut as a 19-year old is never an easy task. But the way Hameed did it was indeed very special. What made it even better that his debut came in the state where his father belongs to – Gujarat. His father, Ismail, hails from Umbraj, Gujarat. Umbraj is at a driving distance of 6 hours from Rajkot where Hameed made his debut.His family was present at the venue to watch Haseeb Hameed don the English whites. His father had migrated to England in 1969 and settled in Bolton, Lancashire. He often watched Geoffrey Boycott in action at Manchester. It was perhaps because of this fact that Hameed got the nickname of Baby Boycott.

Reflecting back at the debut, Ismail quoted that he had tears of happiness and it was an emotional moment for him. “It really was the tears of happiness. Whenever he does well, it makes me feel really good from the inside and really emotional. That is quite natural for a Dad. My family is from Gujarat and when he got his debut in Gujarat, it was a good coincidence. That is why we feel really good,” he quoted.

He further added that Haseeb has the dimensions of Mohammad Azharuddin and Joe Root too, in addition to Boycott. Hameed has a lot of shots in his repertoire and that will come to the fore soon.  “Haseeb is a batsman of a new era – a mix of Geoff Boycott and players like Mohammad Azharuddin and Joe Root because he has a lot of shots. When the time comes, you will see he has really good shots as well. When he defends, he is like a ‘Baby Boycott’. But when he plays shots, he is like somebody else,” remarked the delighted father.

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“Being a father, sometimes you want to get a lot of things, but you understand he is only 19. When the time comes I’m sure he’ll get a lot of runs for England,” he added further. The Hameed family was in Gujarat to attend the wedding of Hameed’s brother Nuaman. Such is the coincidence that Haseeb Hameed made his debut in the presence of his family.

His other brother Safwaan mentioned that their father also adored Sunil Gavaskar and Ian Chappell. All of them were openers and no wonder why Hameed also is an opener. “Aside from Geoffrey Boycott, my Dad’s other heroes were Sunil Gavaskar and Ian Chappell. The three of them had things in common – their defence was their strong points, they valued their wickets. It is no coincidence that all three brothers have been opening batsmen. My Dad always had this thinking that if the foundation of a building is strong, it is hard to topple over that building,” quoted Safwaan.

Adding further to it, he said all these batting qualities have been inherited from the idols to the dad and from the father to them. “And the same with batting as well; if you spend time on the wicket, the runs will come. You can see it in Has, the way he values his wicket. It has come to Dad from his heroes and then to us,” he added.

The family advised Haseeb not to attend his brother’s wedding and concentrate on his practice camp instead. However, they tried to push forward the wedding dates so that the family could spend time together. His family intends to stay in India till the conclusion of the Test series.

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“We received news that Haseeb was maybe going to play in Asia at short notice, but the wedding was always planned for around November or December time. But the moment we heard the news Haseeb had been selected for the England squad, we had to move the wedding forward so we could have two celebrations at one time,” he conceded.

Haseeb showed grit in the first innings but could only manage to get in the 30s. In the second innings, he put on an improved showed and scored 82. He fell short of a remarkable ton by just 18 runs. His brother Nuaman quoted that it must be disappointing for him but that his how the game is.

“Obviously it will be disappointing for Haseeb to just fall short of his first century but being a cricketer, that comes with the territory. There will be days when you fall short of milestones and today was one of those days unfortunately. But there will be other days hopefully not to long in the distant future when he takes that opportunity,” said Nuaman.

Speaking about the same, Safwaan said that when Haseeb reached his half century, all the memories of past came to their vision. “Even though it is such a happy occasion getting the runs, you remember the highs and the lows of his career so far and all the emotions. when he got that 50, the memories came flooding back, of the hard work, the hard graft, the hours that went into that and it was tears of joy,” he concluded.