Abdur Razzaq is one of the finest allrounders the cricket world has seen. He is still only 24 years of age.
His bowling used to be his primary weapon, but that has gradually been on the decline. His batting has on the other had been on the inclination.
He is not as lethal with with the ball as he used to be, but still good enough to see out 7-8 overs in a one dayer at least.
His batting over the last year has come from being decent to quite incredible. His wind up includes a very high backlift and big forward stride. He makes room by taking the front leg out of the way, this is something which cannot be taught.
The first match after Pakistan’s abismal world cup was against Zimbabwe. Pakistans top order mad a muck of things. But out came Razzaq with big strides and licking his lips. He tore into the Zimbabwean(okay only Zimbabwean, still international) bowling attack. He kept launching low full tosses over long on. But it wasnt the amount of sixes that caught the eye. It was the fact that out of seven sixes he hit, every single one of them was a clean strike.Off the meat of his heavy bat.
It was incredible viewing, great entertainment.
Since then he has blown away a lot of bowling attacks in the world.
At home against New Zealand late 2003. He was in breathtaking form, he smashed each and every single one of the New Zealand bowlers out the park. He kept striding out to bat, bringing along with him fear on an unimaginable scale. He taught the Kiwis a lesson. Bowl rubbish and it will be treated as rubbish. He was in the richest vain of form, which he took into the return series.
It was in that series where he claimed his deserved status as the World’s best hitter. In one of the matches he hit a spectacular 50no of just only 26 balls. That was just a taster.
In the final match he displayed one of the most vicious assaults on a bowling attack you could imagine. Smashing 89 of just only 40 deliveries, he destroyed the kiwi attack. He was even hitting yorkers for sixes.
Now if he carries this form into the India series. Then I have no doubt that the Indian bowling attack will have many sleepless nights before facing him. If he gets his way then Pakistan will batter the Indians. You can say the same of Tendulkar but Tendulkar isn’t gona finish with a strike rate of 150+.
The Indians better be aware of Pakistan’s slogger. He will be even more pumped up against them.