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3 hours ago
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Growing up in the late 1990s, I insisted my younger nephews and nieces call me Imran Khan instead of my real name – our own playful twist on traditional respect rituals. A few years later, I upgraded to Wasim Akram (naturally) and they obligingly followed. They’re all grown now, but they still call me “Mama Khan” or “Wasin Akral”- the clumsy childhood pronunciations that stuck to me the way cricket has.
Last week, witnessing the magnificent Mitchell Starc overtake Akram as the leading left arm wicket-taker, made me pause – isn’t it about time for another upgrade?
On the opening day of the second Test at the Gabba, Starc claimed his 415th Test wicket, surpassing Akram’s longstanding record of 414.
What gives that milestone extra weight is the era in which he’s doing it – a period when cricket has tilted heavily in favour of batters. Boundaries are shorter, rules gentler, bouncers restricted and scoring easier than ever. Yet Starc – with 102 Tests to his name, a bowling average hovering around 26.5, and already 17 five-wicket hauls – refuses to bow down. So yes – in a world where wickets are harder to come by and batting dominates, Starcy’s resurgence doesn’t just feel like a comeback. It feels like a statement.
Fast bowlers of my childhood in the 1990s were the giants who always lived in my imagination. Their wrists, their long run-ups, their reverse-swinging thunderbolts that detonated stumps … for kids of my generation, they weren’t just athletes; they were mythological characters staging battles. Ironically, I never fancied bowling myself. I was more of a Jacques Kallis type: laid-back, calm, the easy hitter of towering sixes on crowded Karachi grounds where fielders hunted for lost balls like golfers searching for rogue shots, and batsmen casually ran singles across overlapping pitches where three other games were happening at once.
Decades later, I still find myself unwinding at night by closing my eyes and replaying Mitchell Starc’s bullet-paced, in-swinging yorkers until sleep gently claims me. Cricket has always been my lullaby, my compass, my shorthand for belonging. And in Starcy, I have another cricketing legend to admire.
The love affair began on the hot, cracked streets of Pakistan’s sprawling metropolis, where a taped tennis ball and a battered wooden bat could instantly transform any alleyway into the MCG, Eden Gardens, or Lord’s – depending entirely on the commentary we shouted as we played. We didn’t have helmets, coaching sessions, or any concept of “technique”. We had only the fierce urgency of a six-over match and the knowledge that only two things could stop play: a parent arriving to drag someone home, or the ball flying into a neighbour’s locked courtyard (often followed by the neighbour’s wrath).
In those days, I didn’t just watch the legends of the ’90s – I mimicked them with wild arms, full-throated celebrations and ecstatic leaps. Cricket wasn’t a sport; it was the first language I learned fluently.
Years later, when I moved to Afghanistan, I assumed I had left that world behind. I imagined a country too burdened by conflict to make space for games. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In Kabul and across the rugged mountains, I watched cricket surge like something inevitable. Young boys bowled with astonishing pace on gravel pitches. Teenagers practised Shahid Afridi’s swagger long before Rashid Khan became Rashid Khan. I saw cricket become a soft rebellion – a quiet insistence on joy – in a place where daily life was overshadowed by the Taliban’s insurgency against US and Nato forces. Amid loss and uncertainty, cricket was a small but powerful act of defiance.
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My relationship with the game hasn’t always been glorious. In Bonn, while working as a journalist with Deutsche Welle, I attempted one of the boldest projects of my life: teaching Germans how to play cricket. Let me say this gently – they excel at precision, engineering and punctuality. What they did not understand, and perhaps never learned to appreciate, is why a match can last a whole day or five and still end in a draw. I explained swing, field placements, the lbw rule. I tried comparing cricket to sports they knew. Each week, their polite nods grew more strained. Our summer sessions eventually turned into multicultural food festivals featuring Sri Lankan, Indian and Pakistani dishes – peppered with tiny, almost accidental bits of batting, bowling and fielding.
Then came Australia. Stepping onto my first Australian oval felt like finally arriving at the mothership. During my very first week here, I spotted Tom, the hotel receptionist, watching day one of the 2021 Ashes. That was, even for me, the moment I properly fell in love with Test cricket. We chatted briefly; that same afternoon he took me to a practice session, and by the weekend, I was playing my first club game.
The pitches here are impeccable. The banter is effortless, warm and oddly poetic. My old obsession returned – pure, uncomplicated and joyful. In many ways, cricket shapes how I understand resilience, timing, luck and patience. I still chase the thrill of a perfect yorker on a sunlit afternoon. And at night, I still drift off with the red Kookaburra in my mind, swinging late, fast and true, uprooting the stumps.
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Shadi Khan Saif is an editor, producer and journalist who has worked in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany and Australia
