West Indies vs England: Keeping the faith
This isn’t just a story about religion but without it, England’s spin twins wouldn’t be here in Kolkata for Sunday’s final. The heart-warming tale of Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid is about how sport often paves the road for multiculturalism in countries and also about dreams coming true.
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Mushtaq Ahmed’s phone rang. It was Mark Robinson, England Lions’ coach, on the line, wanting to speak to England’s bowling coach about Adil Rashid, the legspinner. Rashid had an up and down career until then — he had raised hopes as a teenager as early as 2007 but had threatened to fade away in the interim years. He was even dropped by Yorkshire in 2012 and Geoffrey Boycott had been blunt in his assessment. “He’s never progressed, that’s the sad part. You can’t just pick people because they are legspinners.” Mushtaq had worked with a young Rashid, had seen him improve, then fade, and on this afternoon in 2014, he remembers hearing a happy voice of Robinson. (STATS || POINTS TABLE || FIXTURES)
“Mushy, happy news, Adil has improved.” How? “He has got his Allah back.”
Mushtaq was understandably surprised, and went, “Why do you say that?” Robinson’s reply nailed the problem that was pushing Rashid back since then. “He no longer fears failures. That mental weakness seems to have changed. He told me that he now leaves the results to Allah, and that has freed him to bowl well and focus on his bowling. He has really bowled well here.”
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Kadeer Ali remembers a warm summer in September 2006. It was the month of Ramadan and his younger brother Moeen was 19. Kadeer had been a tad worried about his brother in those years. Moeen, a “fiery little bugger” would spend a lot of time with his mates, and Kadeer wasn’t too flushed with the company the teenager was keeping. It all changed that summer. “Almost overnight,” Kadeer recalls now. Kadeer wasn’t, and isn’t, particularly religious — “I pray and stuff but nothing serious” — but he remembers Moeen changing that summer. By the end of that Ramadan, Moeen had undergone a transformation. It was a chance encounter with a West Indian supporter Wally Mohammad, who had recently converted to Islam then, that proved to be the trigger for his own leap into faith. “By that Ramadan, almost overnight, he was a different man,” Kadeer told The Indian Express.
Though he was initially surprised by the transformation, Kadeer was happy with the effects of religion on his younger brother. “I was happy to be honest. His friends weren’t disciplined, they were not bad guys but you know, I thought Moeen was wasting his talent. That’s why I was happy to see the change. He wasn’t a calm boy, growing up, but as he has gotten older and deeper into religion, he has grown a lot calmer and it has had a great effect on his cricket, and life.”
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This isn’t just a story about their faith but without it, they wouldn’t be here in Kolkata for Sunday’s final. We shall come to their cricket shortly but it’s also a story about how sport often paves the road for multiculturalism in countries. Sport can often open the door for liberal values to waft into society. Mushtaq talks rather warmly about the welcoming culture prevailing in the England dressing room, a trait he attributes for English cricketing success in some ways. These are the small little things that spark unity and camaraderie. He talks about scenes when Moeen and he would be fasting, the other players would ensure they wouldn’t eat in the dressing room. “They didn’t have to do it, but the fact that they did it shows how respectful they were of other cultures, how popular Moeen is in the team, and how these little acts help form a bond.” In the past, Moeen has talked about how Graeme Hick once cleared all his kitbag from the dressing room in Taunton so that he could do his namaaz. In July 2014, in a Test match against India, Moeen wore wristbands that read “Save Gaza” and “Free Palestine” while batting. He has helped in raising funds for Gaza relief efforts in his home city. “Was I surprised? Kadeer says, “let me just say that he did what he believed in. I don’t think he expected it to blow up big as it did.”
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It was in 2000, when Moeen was a 13-year-old that Kadeer knew his brother would be a good cricketer one day. Even from a younger age, Moeen would play cricket with Kadeer and the older cousin Kabir Ali, who went on to play a Test for England. That day, Kadeer recalls, the 20-year old Kabir was bowling really quick. He hurled a bouncer that crashed on the helmet of Moeen. “I was a bit worried but Moeen just stood there calmly, adjusted his helmet and got ready for the next ball.” The next delivery was fast and full but Moeen got right behind the line to drive it. “It might seem a small moment but that has stood out in my mind. We all felt that this guy has got something about him. He didn’t run away, back away but proved to be a brave boy. I remember coming home and telling my dad about it.”
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His dad Munir would have been happy that day. An emotional man who loved his three sons — Omar, Kadeer and Moeen — and loved cricket, he has sacrificed quite a lot. He was a psychiatric nurse but had to give up his job after a stroke, and for his desire to travel with his young sons to cricket. Those were the times of struggle that Kadeer even today fails to fathom how his father and uncle — Kabir’s dad — managed.
“I remember my dad didn’t have ten pounds for petrol and food once. And we were on the road for cricket. Dad and uncle were left with one pound after filling up petrol, and used the one pound to buy some bread for the family.
“It was a massive struggle for him, but somehow he carried on. As a coach myself now, I see parents struggling with just one kid’s aspirations to play cricket and we were three then. There was this another time, I remember, when his car had broken down, and he didn’t have the money to repair it. He had to take Moeen for some coaching or a game, and he had to borrow a neighbour’s car. Somehow he always found a way.”
When Mooen made his Test debut, his family was understandably delirious. The emotional Munir was proud and happy while Kadeer just about managed to shake Moeen’s hands and say — “Mate, you have done the whole family proud.”
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Elsewhere, in Bradford, a multi-racial district in England with Muslims forming a quarter of its population, Abdul Rashid, who moved at the age of 13 from Mirpur in Pakistan-administered Kashmir to England in 1967, was another dad working his cricket dream into his son Adil. When he was eight years, Abdul not only threw the ball to Adil but also told him to bowl legspin. There was a hockey pitch up where the ball would bounce well on the artificial surface and Abdul would take his son there to bowl.
Money wasn’t an issue in the household of Rashids, and Abdul built a room in the basement — 23 feet by 28 feet — for practice. The father and three sons — Haroon, a fast bowler, Amar, and Adil — would practice with a proper leather ball. The walls were dented and its plasters peeled off but the ball continued to ricochet off them for quite some time before they re-did the place and started using tennis balls. Abdul would hang balls on ropes from the ceilings and make his sons practice. The passionate dad would organise cricket training with clubs in Lahore even on family holidays to Pakistan during Christmas vacation.
Abdul watched over the teenage years of his sons and used cricket to prevent them from straying in life. The father would have his sons engaged in matches and it would be late in the day, 9 to 10 pm, by the time the four would return home. On non-match days, he would take them to net. “I didn’t even let them think. Sometimes I would take one to play at Taunton, to play at Yorkshire representative level, then come back to Bradford and take another up to Newcastle while the third needed transport playing somewhere in the east,” Abdul said in an interview once.
Haroon was a medium pacer who could bat in the top order, Amar was a batsman who bowled leg spin but it was the youngest Adil who began to make a name for himself. When he was 13, he took 10 wickets for 55 runs in a senior game in Bradford league. The Bradford Council was so impressed that they brought Abdul Qadir, the famous Pakistan leggie, to give five coaching lessons to Adil.
Soon, the boy had begun to move up the ranks in cricket, and came under the influence of Shane Warne’s coach Terry Jenner. “Mr Rashid, you’ve got a good legspinner there. You’ve done a good job with his wrist. I will work with his head and delivery stride,” Jenner said.
In July 2006, he became the first Muslim cricketer to play for Yorkshire. On a hot day with a dry pitch aiding him, the boy took six wickets, immediately cuing up lot of attention on him.
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Both Moeen and Adil started facing problems at the start of their careers. Adil in particular wasn’t strong mentally, feels Mushtaq, and his fear of failure was freezing him up. Moeen, who started as a batsman who could bowl, had problems against bouncers. Both had to go back to the drawing board, and start again.
Kadeer Ali and his cousin Kabir would take Moeen to Edgbaston training centre in the wee hours of morning. “We dipped rubber balls in water and would hurl at him for couple of hours. My brother is a real hard worker. He was always a confident guy but he began to work extra hard on his cricket.”
Mushtaq agrees with that assessment and brings up his bowling to make his case. “Just look at how his bowling has developed. He has a great high-arm action, gets a lovely drift and can turn the ball. There are two kinds of spinners — one who turn the ball, and ones who can spin. The spinners are the ones who put a lot of revolution on the ball and the turners just get turn off the pitch. Moeen Ali is now a spinner. Asli ho gaya abhi.”
Cheteshwar Pujara, the Indian batsman, who fell twice to Moeen in the 2013 series at home vouches that statement. It was the series that turned Moeen’s career around. Pujara says he knew that Moeen bowled with a flatter trajectory, could turn the ball a little, and even expected that he would bowl it quicker. It was Ian Bell who had suggested to Moeen that he should bowl quicker through the air in that series. “It was the drift that got me,” Pujara says now.
“Perhaps, it’s because of his high-arm action, but he gets a nice drift. Both out and in. And I had seen the ball turn a bit. One time, the ball drifted away and I sort of followed it, and edged to the slips. It’s the drift that can create problems for batsmen who are used to playing turn and Moeen has developed even more now.”
In Adil’s case, Mushtaq reckons once he found his inner strength, and a stronger temperament, the hard work began to pay off. “His action has become very compact now. By that, there is nothing that can break now. It’s a repeatable action. Everything is well-aligned, and he uses the body a lot more. And because of his high-arm action, his googlies are deceptive.” Pujara, who has played with Adil in county cricket, agrees. “Adil likes when batsmen go after him and that’s why he has been successful in T20. His googlies and flippers then come into play more, and with the batsmen looking to hit, they sometimes miss to pick the variations. Unlike some other legspinners whose googlies slow up as they loop it up from the back of the hand, Adil maintains the same pace on it as his normal legbreaks. He has sort of a quick action too and that also helps. Both Moeen and Adil have continuously improved and have played their part in getting England to the final now.”
Known as the ‘beard that’s feared’ in Worcestershire promotional literature, Moeen Ali, the ‘fiery little bugger’ who turned a corner, and Adil Rashid, the self-doubting youth who got his Allah back, have been the quiet performers behind England’s astounding campaign in the world cup thus far. And they now have one more night out on their field of dreams on Sunday.
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