Pakistani fast bowler Sohail Khan, who replaced Wahab Riaz for the third Test against England, has admitted that watching videos of star English pacer James Anderson had helped him to prepare for the match. The 32-year-old, who was playing a Test after a wait of five years, justified his recall by taking five for 96 as England were dismissed for 297 on the first day of the third Test at Edgbaston. Sohail dismantled the English top order as he accounted for four of the first five wickets to fall.
“When I came here after I was named in the squad I watched James Anderson’s videos, he bowls at 80 mph but gets eight to ten wickets every match,” Sohail said on Wednesday (August 3). “I watched him and noticed that he doesn’t try to bowl very fast. Mushy (Mushtaq Ahmed) also told me that if you don’t bowl (too) fast and give the ball air, it will swing.
“I had played two Tests before and I was bowling inswing mostly,” he said. “I tried to ball fast, I can still bowl fast, but then I met various coaches and they told me to bowl as per the conditions.”
Sohail, who made his debut against Sri Lanka in 2009, had to wait for a couple of years to play another Test against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. The pacer started his Test career poorly as he could take a solitary wicket in first two matches and conceded 245 runs.
“I couldn’t bowl well in my first Test in Karachi and some catches were also dropped off my bowling. I got my next chance in 2011 and there too I didn’t do well,” he admitted. “Now I have got another chance which I will not let go,”
“You expect to do well every day but cricket is such a game that it can take you on a high one day and then you go down on a bad day. But if you work hard, and bowl a good line and length, then success comes and every day is a good day,” the pacer concluded.