Sajid Khan with Saud Shakeel© AFP
Pakistan’s experienced off-spinner Sajid Khan found a unique way to play all sorts of tricks on England players during the ongoing third Test in Rawalpindi. From twirling his moustache to thumping his thigh, Sajid found another way to get under the skin of England bowlers by using bilingualism to his advantage. While Sajid’s success with the ball comes down to his angle of spin and the flight of the delivery, his fortune with the bat is a different story.
On the fourth ball of the 86th over, Sajid had a conversation with vice-captain Saud Shakeel. The duo didn’t mind if the stump mic had caught the conversation they had before Sajid went on to take the strike.
Sajid danced around on the crease and went on to launch the ball over midwicket into the Javed Miandad stand. The 31-year-old revealed that the intended audience of their conversation were Pakistan-origin spinners, Rehan Ahmed and Shoaib Bashir.
“We were only doing that [speaking loudly in Urdu] to deceive the bowlers. Rehan and Shoaib understand Urdu, so to fool them, we wanted them to hear we were only looking for the single. When we did that, they brought the field up, and the bowlers flighted it. Saud told me once they do, no half measures: just go for the big shot as hard as you can,” Sajid said as quoted from ESPNcricinfo.
In the next over that Bashir bowled, Sajid hammered two sixes and a four in a similar fashion by targeting the midwicket region. He went unbeaten with a swashbuckling knock of run-a-ball 48, which propelled Pakistan to 344.
Rehan acknowledged the quality of Sajid’s impressive outing with the bat but refuted his comments about misleading him with his conversation in Urdu.
“He didn’t fool me at all. He just said it for the media. I didn’t even hear him. He said something like he’s going to run down this ball, and I knew he was going to try and scoop me, and it didn’t really work. I think he batted well, and he hit some big blows, but he didn’t really fool me or Bash,” Rehan said with a smile.
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