ISLAMABAD: Mohammad Irfan could become the next big thing in international cricket.
Just months ago, the 6-foot-8 Irfan was working in a plastic pipe factory for about $96 a month, playing club cricket in eastern Pakistan.
And at the age of 27, he completed just his second first-class match over the weekend, an impressive performance for the KRL team.
Yet if predictions that he’ll keep growing are accurate, if expectations that his bowling will get quicker come to fruition and if national selectors allow his meteoric rise to keep gathering momentum, he could join or even replace Joel “Big Bird” Garner and Bruce Reid-both 6-8-as the tallest players ever in international cricket.
Garner, who terrorized batsmen in the late 1970s and 1980s for the West Indies, is the player Irfan has been studying most.
“I have seen quite a lot of videos how Garner used to bowl,” Irfan said in a telephone interview Monday with The Associated Press.
“The videos help a lot to learn the art of fast bowling.”
There have been taller first-class players. Will Jefferson, who has just left Nottinghamshire, and Paul Dunkels, a Warwickshire fast bowler in the 1970s, were both 6-10 when they played English county cricket.
Early speculation of Irfan’s size would have put him at the top of the list. Bloggers were marveling on the Internet about a 7-2 prospect after he was spotted by ex-first-class cricketer Nadeem Iqbal playing for a local club in Gagu Mandi.
KRL batsman Azhar Ali told team official Rashid Iqbal about Irfan, prompting a call in June. That’s when the hype started.
It’s all still a bit surreal for Irfan, who had wanted to be a top cricketer ever since he was in high school but took a decade to stand out-despite his height-from the millions of aspiring cricketers.
The exaggerations about his height are amusing for him, even if he isn’t entirely sure exactly how tall he is.
He said whoever comes to measure him usually brings their own tape. A television crew “came and measured me at 7-foot-1. ... Today someone came and said I am 6-foot-8,” he said, laughing at the so-far imprecize science.
One thing that hasn’t been overblown is his improvement under expert tuition.
Former test fast bowler Aaqib Javed and test captain Aamir Sohail worked with Irfan when he was given a start at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore earlier this year.
KRL had been monitoring him since midyear.
“Some four months ago we heard about Irfan and we immediately decided to have him on board,” Rashid Iqbal told the AP. “At the moment he is raw and he bowls between 130-140 kph (81-87 mph) but I am sure that with the passage of time he could bowl up to 150 kph (93 mph).”
That would put him among the fastest bowlers in the game.
“The best thing about Irfan is that he is a quick learner,” Iqbal said.
