Fabtastic!Stupendiforous!
Supranormous!
There are not enough adjectives in the English language to describe Abdul Razzaq’s simply epic innings yesterday and, frankly, the ones available don’t do it any justice. So I just decided to make up my own. Why should we be bound to conventional rules and limitations when recalling an innings so unconventional in its construction and so limitless in its brilliance.
When Razzaq walked out onto the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, at least half the television sets tuned into the match must have been switched off. His entrance came at the cost of Shahid Afridi, who had seemed like the last hope of salvaging any semblance of pride in this game. Indeed, Afridi’s knock was spectacular within its own scale and you couldn’t help but believe that as long as he was alive the impossible was just about attainable.
But, as is always the case with Shahid, his brand of madness is more vulnerable to implosion than the calculated, introspective psychosis Razzaq brings to the table. Both dare to dream. Both are megalomaniacal in their ambitions. Both possess that unique spark of creativity reserved only for some, which make us – the viewer – believe that they are capable of the unimaginable. And yesterday Razzaq’s spark burned with the intensity of a nuclear furnace to incinerate the South African challenge, ball by ball, over by over.Until the 47th over, bowled by Charl Langeveldt, there had been no impatient dash to the finish line, as is more characteristic of an Afridi innings. Even during that key over, there seemed a kind of logic at work during the carnage. As if now Razzaq had decided that, with the asking rate hovering above 13 per over and with the cushion of three wickets in hand, this was the time to cash in to ensure the asking rate at the end would not reach overwhelming proportions. The challenge was so great, however, that despite a mammoth 47th over Razzaq still left himself with 14 to get in the final six with the last wicket. Hardly a manageable task. But the Razzler was up to it.
Up till the 47th over, it was an innings at odds with the script of the game, the expectations of all rational viewers and with history itself. As Osman Samiuddin rightly observed, only after Razzaq smoked his last six was it possible to come to terms with the likelihood of victory. Our history of chasing South African scores is insipid, with our best “effort” being the overtaking of 223 back in the mid-90s. This oppressive history seemed destined to persist as our innings unfolded predictably with the loss of top-order wickets and our middle order’s inability to provide any acceleration. Any hope or belief we had was used up by Afridi who inspired us to place our faith in him but dumped our expectations in that all too familiar graveyard at long-on. Even the first three quarters of Razzaq’s innings seemed gloriously futile as he was always facing a mounting run-rate and the steady disintegration of support. At times you felt the innings was more ornamental than definitive as the violence seemed too measured to truly amount to anything.But then we don’t have the benefit of being in Razzaq’s head when he orchestrates a masterpiece such as this. The greatest virtue of madness is that its “victims” can see infinite patterns and outcomes in scenarios where others simply see the finite and the orthodox. Where you and I would be unable to let our consciousness transcend worldly limitations, a Beethoven could compose a moonlight sonata or 5th Symphony and an Isaac Newton could formulate the laws of motion and theorize universal gravitation.
And an Abdul Razzaq could calmly see before him the route to victory whereas others could only conceive defeat.
Entire overs would go by without as much as a boundary. He would get beaten. Poke a single. Defend carefully. And then abruptly blitz a six or four with the comfort of one toying with children. There was a special kind of methodology behind it, one undecipherable to our limited consciousness. Was it confidence? That’s too simple an explanation. Razzaq was operating on a different plane of existence altogether. He surveyed the competing variables at work around him and it all made sense to him. He distilled the match into an elegant formula:
“If they allow me to free my arms, I’m going to kill it.”And so he did.
The last over was never a problem for Razzaq. By then he had supreme conviction in this formula. Once he got bat on ball he was assured of the desired result. You see, that’s why his face is so puzzlingly emotionless. It all seems so simple and logical to him. No edges. No mishits. No leg-byes or glances. Just outright, ludicrously effective power hitting wherever and whenever he wanted it.
We’ll never be able to understand it or predict its next occurrence. The best we can do is to remember it fondly.
It was insane. It was inspirational. It was sensational.It was “insational”!
