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Pakistan’s young pacer Mohammad Asif will fly directly from Abu Dhabi to the United Kingdom to join his County Leicestershire for whom he plays for the next two months until the Pakistan team starts its tour of England in late June.

The 23-year-old Asif, who has grabbed 24 wickets in his last three Tests and was recently also given a pay raise for his performances, will be playing his first season in English county cricket.

For the last few weeks Asif has had the opportunity to be trained by former Pakistan captain and fast bowler par excellence, Waqar Younis and he said he was learning a lot from him.

Waqar was recently hired as the bowling coach by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and accompanied the team to Sri Lanka and is also now in Abu Dhabi. “It is a big advantage to have someone of Waqar’s calibre helping you out. Though I was never coached in my younger days, I modelled myself on Waqar and dreamt of becoming like him,” Asif said. “On the Sri Lanka tour he told me during nets that I’ve a few qualities in my bowling which he did not have at this age. I was really excited to hear this from him.”

Coach Bob Woolmer also believes that Asif would be sharper under the guidance of the ‘sultan of swing’.

Asif said he had been deeply inspired by the encouragement he has got from Waqar and says it is a big motivating factor for him to perform better and better. “I was deeply inspired by this and his statement was like a blessing to me. And I’m really fortunate that he’ll be in the nets as the bowling coach,” he stated.

Out of the 17 victims he took in the two Tests in Sri Lanka, 11 were bowled out and Asif looks back fondly, saying, “I really enjoyed bowling there and those 11 could not read my swing. They were deceived by the movement of the ball.”

One of his most cherished moments was though getting VVS Laxman out in the Test against India. “I’ll never forget the way I got Laxman’s wicket. The ball pitched outside off stump, came in sharp and found the gap between bat and pad and uprooted the middle-stump,” he said reminiscing.

Asif said he had also never dreamt of playing county cricket and hoped his stint with Leicestershire would help him prepare for the Pakistan team’s tour that includes four Tests and five One-day Internationals. “Pakistan will be touring England in the summer and I’m going there early so that I can acclimatise myself with the conditions,” he said, adding, “At the same time I’ll be looking to learn something in England. I’ve already started working on how to get that reverse swing.”

Source: The News

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