Cricket
Melinda Farrell at Malahide 6y

Mohammad Amir, a mighty fast bowler who's mislaid his purpose

PAK in IRE-ENG-SCOT 2018, Cricket

Ireland's batsmen have faced 35 overs. All of the emotion and anticipation and celebration has been abruptly halted by 35 overs of stark, brutal reality check. They are eight-down with a meagre 87 runs on the board. Boyd Rankin is on strike. Time to clean up the tail.

Mohammad Amir stands at the top of his mark and tosses the ball from one hand to the other before smoothly accelerating into his silkily fluid run-up. He lets fly and ball bangs in short. So short, it bounces over the head of Rankin - a man who makes everyone around him look like extras in The Hobbit. It careens above the outstretched hand of a leaping Sarfraz Ahmed and flies to the boundary for four byes. A bit short, then.

For his next two deliveries, Amir tries a fuller length; Rankin calmly prods the ball away.

The fourth ball: a searing yorker! It dips late and treacherous towards off stump and Rankin can barely jam his bat down in time. Even as he does, the ball scrapes the edge and skates past the stumps.

Sarfraz brings in a short leg and a leg gully. Gary Wilson is on strike. Screws tightening.

It's another bouncer. Sarfraz stops this one but a wide is called. Screws loosen.

Two length balls to finish. Two balls defended.

After earnestly searching and, for a moment, finding the right length, Amir is taken out of the attack and replaced by Haris Sohail.

***

Seek and ye shall find, they say. And yet, Amir has been searching-without-quite-finding for two years. Maybe he's not even sure what it is he's looking for. An elusive key to unlock the treasures of his previous incarnation? He's not the only one looking. We've all been craning our necks since he made his excruciatingly scrutinised return to Test cricket at Lord's two years ago, nervously trying to shut out the audible hum at the Home of Cricket.

There have been others who have missed years of Test cricket, who have had to rebuild their bodies and actions after injury, and have returned as different bowlers. But Amir is unique: five years' complete break from playing any form of the game or training and maintaining his body while rehabilitating his reputation. And, two years into Phase Two, it's still unclear what kind of bowler has returned.

Amir feels that cricket has changed in his absence. The pace of the game is faster, he says. The wickets seem flatter. He has also expressed concern about his management: he has bowled more international overs than any Pakistan cricketer since his return. The recurring knee injury that forced him off the field in Malahide is an ongoing concern and brings more questions about his durability while playing all three formats. How much can cricket take from Amir's body? How much can Amir's body take from cricket?

It's not that he bowls badly. There are good spells, and great spells, and there are times when he seems tantalisingly close to having it all. He still threatens and he still takes wickets. But the big hauls on the back of extravagant, unplayable swing have not emerged in his second coming. Perhaps it is us who are looking too hard.

Malahide is a speakeasy, buzzing with swing. Ireland's bowlers had it hooping at times. Add an extra five- to ten miles an hour, a new ball and challenging conditions become treacherous. And so it proved. Mohammad Abbas had Ireland's openers bamboozled and beaten.

Amir's turn came with the wicket of Will Porterfield. But it wasn't with booming swing. He came over the wicket and wide of the crease, angling the ball in to send the off stump cartwheeling. A beautiful sight - not just the spinning stump but the outspread arms and the smile of the victorious bowler. And yet, and yet. It still seemed that Abbas was the No.1 strike bowler out there at this one point in time.

The new kid in town, Abbas hasn't gone wicketless in the 11 innings he's played in six Tests. Only five Test bowlers - including the likes of James Anderson and Vernon Philander - have a better economy rate in the period since his debut.

In the six matches that Abbas and Amir have played together, Abbas has picked up 27 wickets at 20.25 and Amir 16 wickets at 25.12. They are both outstanding sets of figures but the importance of Abbas to Pakistan's fortunes in the upcoming series against England appears even greater given his current form.

At the other end of the spectrum, the even greener Shadab Khan shows all the promise of a matchwinner. He may as well have bowled cans of soda during Ireland's first innings, with the pop and fizz of his variations hoodwinking the batsmen time and again.

Those players haven't had 16 catches dropped in 17 Tests, a disheartening statistic for any bowler.

Against Ireland they came - of course they came - as Amir was bowling his best spell of the match. Everything clicked into place after Pakistan enforced the follow-on and Amir took the new ball. In his first over, Sarfraz missed a low difficult chance that would have dismissed Ed Joyce. Soon after, Amir drew an edge from Porterfield with another beauty. It was dropped by Azhar Ali at third slip.

Just as he seemed to find 'it', it slipped out of his grasp in a wisp of drops and a dodgy knee. He limped back to the dressing room, to the physio and icing and more management.

Amir is still undoubtedly the leader of this Pakistan attack. But whether or not he should continue to lead in all three formats is a question that seems more pressing now than ever. Perhaps the answer to that is what Amir - and Pakistan - truly seek.

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