Mickey Arthur’s Emirates Eagles lost to a United Tigers side full of his old Pakistan players. One of them, Faheem Ashraf, had the Roti Gang and Abu Dhabi’s night swing on his mind.
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Abu Dhabi, November 14: Did knowing so many Pakistan players give Mickey Arthur an advantage? “You wouldn’t say it after today, because they all played quite well,” he said on Friday at Zayed Cricket Stadium, after his Emirates Eagles had lost to United Tigers by 24 runs. “Which is nice for me, because I worked with them when they were young boys and now they’re men.”
Arthur was Pakistan’s head coach from 2016 to 2019 and won the 2017 Champions Trophy with them. Arthur was later Team Director of Pakistan in the lead-up to the 2023 ODI World Cup. Fakhar Zaman, who captains the Tigers, and Faheem Ashraf both made their one-day debuts during the 2017 Champions Trophy. Nine years on, the two of them were in the opposite dugout, and their old coach did not hide whose side he is usually on. “I’m still very, very partial to Pakistan,” he said. “I had an unbelievable time coaching those players. I just want to see them get better and better.”
That goes for the ones who are not here, too. Asked for a word of advice for Babar Azam, he kept it short. “He’s a class player. One big score and I think he’ll be back on track.”
Faheem thinks that shared history is the best thing about the Tigers. “When so many boys in one team have played together for ten or twelve years, domestic or international, you know each other’s game very well,” he said. “Even the others, look at Omarzai, or the local boys here, they have been playing with us for a long time. In a short format, the quicker your combination comes together, the better your team does.”
On Friday the match was decided by the Afghan in that group. Azmatullah Omarzai came in with the Tigers 70 for three in the seventh over, hit his first three balls for six and made 33 off nine. The Tigers reached 143 for five. Alex Hales answered with an unbeaten 67 off 31 balls, but the Eagles finished on 119 for two.
“Up until over seven, we were ahead of the game,” Arthur said. “Then Omarzai, in his floating powerplay over, nailed his yorkers and that changed the momentum. He did exactly the same thing when he batted. They were stalling a little bit, and he’s come and hit his first three balls for six.” Had the Eagles planned for a strike rate near 400? “No, we weren’t prepared for it. He was probably the defining factor in the game.”
The Tigers dugout could hardly believe it either. “When he hit the first one, believe me, the whole dugout was saying, what was that?” Faheem said. “After that, on every shot, the dugout was only clapping for him.” He had a theory about it too. “I think his family is here, so he is a bit easy in his mind. The man just comes in and keeps playing.”
Coach and player took the same lesson from it about ten-over cricket. “It is proper cricket, but it is fast cricket, so momentum shifts very quickly,” Faheem said. “Today we were going level with them, and one over gave us a momentum that the team carried right to the end.” Arthur put it in a coach’s terms. “Games are determined by one ball. You can’t afford a game to drift by a ball or two, because that could be the defining moment. Tactically it’s a good challenge. I enjoy it.”
He will take Hales’s innings out of the defeat. Arthur had tried Kusal Perera at the top of the order in the previous game and moved Hales down. “He came back with a point to prove today and certainly proved that point,” he said. He had a view on the wind as well. The boundary was much shorter on one side on Friday, he said, “but that was null and voided by the fact that you had to hit into the wind to go to the short boundary”.
Faheem’s own afternoon was harder. His two overs cost 34 as Hales kept swinging to the end. Asked afterwards to name the best all-rounders in the world, he began with India’s Hardik Pandya. “Leave everything else aside and look at him as a sportsperson. There is nobody like Hardik in the world right now,” he said. Pakistan’s young players, he added, should model themselves on South Africa’s Marco Jansen.
He was happier still talking about bowling here after dark. “We played all our cricket here in the early part of our careers,” he said. Pakistan were still playing their home series in the UAE at the time. “Every fast bowler wants to bowl in Abu Dhabi at night. The ball was swinging, everything was going well, and we had a very good time. Even now, when we get time, we try to give a little of it to ourselves here. Especially at sunset, when the breeze is blowing, you enjoy it even if you are playing a match.”
Arthur needs no persuading about the place. “I love this region,” he said. “I’ve got a golden visa, so I come here a hell of a lot. I’m a UAE resident. Every time you come back there’s something new.”
Faheem’s early years also produced the Roti Gang, the group of friends that includes Fakhar, Shadab Khan and Hasan Ali. It took shape on a tour of New Zealand, and Faheem said the clue is in the name. “We were young boys, we didn’t know much and we hadn’t explored much, so wherever we went to eat, we went together.”
Shadab is with UAE Bulls this month, which makes him an opponent. “Face to face you won’t see anything,” Faheem said. “But when we pass each other we say a little something. And after the match, if somebody has hit two extra sixes, he will definitely be asked what he was doing.” There is one rule. “Jokes, yes. But bowling and batting we have never made into a joke. That is the best thing about us.”
The Tigers are halfway through their league matches, and the Roti Gang reunion on the field is still pending. “It hasn’t happened with Shadab in this tournament yet,” Faheem said. “He was standing too far away from us.”