It wasn’t dismissing Kumar Sangakkara twice in his debut Test, though that was pretty good. Or the five-fer at the MCG, though that was also pretty good. Not the swooping outswinger that did for Mitchell Johnson at Headingley, though it’s difficult to better that aesthetically. It wasn’t even the eight-ball spell in which he took four middle-order wickets against England at Lord’s, that euphoric high before the juddering comedown.
None of it, not the swing, the pace, the youthfulness, the hair, any of it. No, what now feels most instructive from the early Mohammad Amir canon is the first over of the T20 World Cup final in 2009. You know this story. Lord’s. Firestarter Dilshan. Shahzaib round the corner. Ian Bishop, booming, calling it. Delirium in the stands, all over. Next month, as the ninth T20 World Cup enters its Super Eights, it’ll be 15 years since that over; what turned out to be a window into Amir’s past at that point and a glimpse into his future.
Unsurprisingly for how important the over was – and that it’s Amir, a bowling nerd – he remembers it in some detail, the most telling of which is that, aged 17, six games and two weeks into his senior Pakistan career, it was he who hatched the plan.
“I had watched Dilshan bat through the tournament and I figured he was hitting the Dilscoop whenever he was getting stuck in an innings,” Amir says. “You know how a bowler has a stock ball? This was his stock shot. When he gets stuck, he plays that shot. It was his release, his get-out shot. To stop it I thought, why not put him on the back foot?”
Amir had first-hand knowledge of the shot, having been Dilscooped in Sri Lanka’s group-stage win over Pakistan earlier, also at Lord’s early on. So the day before the final, he went to the captain, Younis Khan, in the bowlers’ meeting and presented his plan. Bowl bouncers, hit the shorter side of back of a length, give him no room, no space. Younis had watched Amir’s development closely through the preceding domestic season, including being dismissed twice by him, and was happy to let the kid take the lead.
Now a short-ball plan is hardly rocket science, least of all in today’s T20s, war-gamed as they often are right down to the last percentage point of intent in a batter’s shot. But to be 17, in your first major assignment, a world event, and this attentive to detail spoke of the preternatural abilities of young Amir; he had game sense in a way cricketers that age usually don’t.
In any case, the greatness of the over lies in its near-perfect execution, beginning with a bouncer first ball. Angled across Dilshan, nearly 88mph, whizzing past his right ear and just over his right shoulder. The bouncer can be as difficult to get right first up as the inswinging yorker is. Too short or too much effort – on a bouncy track as Lord’s was that day – and it can sail over for wides. Not quick enough or the wrong line and it becomes a gimme. But if done right, then, without even taking a wicket, it makes an impact.
“Most batsmen won’t think that in the first over, the first or even second ball he’ll bowl me a bouncer,” Amir says. “If you show that aggression and in a big game, it puts the batsman under some pressure. His plan has to change and you’re now one step ahead.”
Shahid Afridi, another big influence in Amir’s first year, hared up to him after that ball. ‘”Charr ke bowling karo, no fear.” (Get right on top of him.) And the next two balls, Amir did, both sharp, around 88-89mph. But speed wasn’t the thing. Each rose from back of a length to near-about the height of Dilshan’s armpits – charr ke – angling across but not enough to afford him any room and no length to drive. In other words the balls played him rather than the other way round; both dots, Dilshan now growing fidgety. Bishop razor-sharp on air: “Another short ball, three short balls in a row, definite plan we’re seeing here.”
