Fawad Alam’s recall: A decade-late apology filled with remorse

Fawad Alam’s recall: A decade-late apology filled with remorse

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After ghosting Fawad Alam for 10 long years, the Pakistani selectors have finally gone back to the left-hander in desperate search of stability; an action filled with guilt and remorse, a last-ditch attempt towards reconciliation.

Back in 2009, a fluffy-haired left-handed batsman with an anything but perfect technique whose front-leg, at the time of the bowler releasing the ball, was four stumps outside the leg-stump, opened the batting for Pakistan in Test cricket. His stroke-making was unconvincing, his balance was all over the place and his technique, well, was unconventional. But there was one thing he was good at - scoring runs. His name was Fawad Alam. 

2009, till date, remains the year the fans last got to see a glimpse of Alam batting in whites for Pakistan. After his first stint - which saw him average 41.66 in 3 matches with a hundred to his name - the then 24-year-old was chucked out of the team only to be never considered for Test selection again. But over the course of the last decade, Alam has become a marvel; a legend whose achievements in domestic cricket in Pakistan are nonpareil. Now, after a 10-year hiatus, the southpaw has been recalled to the Pakistan Test team - a decision that has perhaps come at least eight years too late.

It is equally interesting and baffling that it has taken Pakistan - a team that has monumentally struggled to find good batsmen post the retirement of Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan - ten years to go back to Alam who, in this very same time span, has been making a mockery out of domestic cricket. Looking at his numbers, you wonder if Alam is actually a real entity or just a faux prototype created to motivate the batsmen around him; they are absurd.

In the history of first-class cricket, only 10 batsmen who have scored more than 12,000 first-class runs have scored them at a better average than Alam and his FC average of 56.84 is the fourth-best amongst Asians - behind Vijay Hazare, Vijay Merchant and Sachin Tendulkar - and the best amongst Pakistanis (min 12,000 runs).  In the Quaid-e-Azam trophy which, by the selectors’ own words is the pathway to break into the team, Alam has averaged north of 58 across the past 5 seasons and since the start of 2018, has averaged close to 71. 

So what is it about Alam that has made the Pakistani selectors vehemently ignore him for more than a decade? That, we’ll never know. But what we know, however, is the fact that he was unlucky, axed prematurely and for long, starved of a worthy opportunity. Of the 42 players who went on to play for Pakistan post Alam’s debut, including a truckload of batsmen, only Azhar Ali and Zulqarnain Haider can boast of having a better batting average than the left-hander. 

Now, with his recall for the Sri Lanka Tests, Alam’s career has, funnily enough, come a full circle, with him having made his Test debut against the very same opposition 10 years ago. By ignoring Alam for so long, Pakistan dug themselves into a hole so deep that the only way out of it for them was to go back to the man himself. And now, go back to him they have, finally, keeping their ego, dignity and self-respect aside, something that should have been done a long long time ago.  

Alam has, in many ways, through the sheer weight of runs he’s scored, guilt-tripped the selectors into recalling him, something many a batsman around the cricketing world has often attempted and failed. After all, you can only hit the snooze button on your ‘Alam’ clock so many times as eventually, the realization that you’ve got a job at hand to finish will get you to wake up from your slumber. 

In an era where quality batsmen are few and far between, Pakistan have been blessed with exceptional talent and yet, despite the widespread famine of world-class batters in the country, it has taken them 10 long years to go back to him again after being 'unsatisfied' with his first stint. It has taken them more than a decade to realize that what they’ve been missing has, in fact, been lying right in front of their eyes. Alam's recall is less about him and more about Pakistan, less of a reward for his performances and more of a remorse-filled apology from his country's end to make up for their decade-long unjustifiable actions.

Now 34, Alam might very well have a good 3-4 years ahead and end his career on a high, but irrespective of what he goes on to achieve, his story will have a "What could have been?" end to it and no one but the Pakistani team management will be to blame for it.

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