The recently concluded tour of England was a mixed one for Pakistani pacer, Wahab Riaz. The left arm fast bowler had a moderate test series as he was among the wickets, but was also a tad inconsistent. However, things took a turn for the worse when he was hammered at Nottingham by the England batsmen in the 4th ODI. Riaz went on to concede the second most expensive spell in ODI history and the runs he conceded were well above the three figure mark.
Given a final opportunity in the one-off T20I fixture at Manchester, Riaz redeemed himself with a fine bowling performance. On a hard pitch great for batting, Riaz was simply fantastic as he took three crucial scalps to dent England’s hopes of getting to a respectable total. In his quota of 4 overs, Riaz gave away just 18 runs. He was duly named the Man of the Match, and in the presentation, admitted that the tour had been a good one for Pakistan.
“We know England are destructive and we needed wickets to put them under pressure. We managed to bowl good areas. Wasim kept things quiet, they had to take chances. The wicket is very slow, I was watching the way the new ball went. Sarfraz always gives positive vibes. He was telling us that there’s no way that we’re losing this game and we will give all that we’ve got. Very good tour for us,”
the experienced pacer, Riaz, said.
Riaz also mentioned that he varied his pace quite a bit in order to have an edge over the English batsmen.
“I had a plan within myself that if I have to bowl fast it has to be very fast and if I have to bowl slow it has to be very slow and you have to have a lot of varieties in this T20 game. When you are in rhythm, things go your way,”
Riaz said.
The pacer also thanked bowling coach Azhar Mahmood in order to help him curb his habit of frequently bowling no balls.
“I wasn’t in the habit of bowling no-balls before this tour, I don’t know what happened to me. The credit goes to the bowling coach, he really helped me, he was very strict with me about the no-balls. Because I was resting the last two games, he really worked hard with me and the credit goes to him.”