Let’s talk about Imam

The left-handed batter is now the second-ranked ODI batsman, yet he is not being celebrated

“Even if he [Imam-ul-Haq] scores 10,000 runs, I will still call him a parchi,” said former Test cricketer Tanveer Ahmed during a show on a private TV channel after the opening batter scored a hundred at the prestigious venue of Lord’s.

By the time these words were said, Imam had played 37 matches and scored seven centuries. Moreover, the left-handed batter is the second-fastest to reach 1,000 runs (19 games), leaving behind West Indies’ Sir Vivian Richards and England’s Kevin Pietersen who achieved the feat in 21 innings and just second to his ODI opening partner Fakhar Zaman, who reached there in 18 ODIs.

After Pakistan’s triumph in the 2017 Champions Trophy, chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq decided to persist with the same squad, except for the opening batter Azhar Ali, who was rested and Imam was called to join the squad, who happens to be his nephew.

The decision sparked a huge controversy. The former captain and one of the greatest batters ever produced by Pakistan was being condemned harshly. The then 21-year-old was immediately labelled as parchi, a slang used to define nepotism.

Social media was just flooded with all kinds of derogatory and unforgiving memes. The uncle-nephew duo was trolled mercilessly over the internet.

Fakhar Zaman and Ahmed Shehzad opened the batting in the first two ODIs with the right-handed batter getting failed on both occasions. It was Babar Azam who rescued the side with back-to-back tons.

Finally, the batter with the spectacles on made his debut in the third ODI. The youngster must have been under immense pressure as he was being ridiculed everywhere, the mainstream media, social media, WhatsApp and whatnot.

However, he kept his nerves and went on to score a century in his first outing. It was an impressive effort, making 100 runs on 125 deliveries with the help of five fours and two sixes in a chasing cause.

The inning should have calmed down Pakistan fans if not convinced that they have found a decent batter. However, it wasn’t the case. He continued to be disapproved and trolled, though he kept replying to his critics with his bat.

In his first ten ODIs, he scored four centuries and a half-century, which was extraordinary. But, three of those hundreds came against Zimbabwe and one against Sri Lanka, so his opponents argued that he was just good against minnows.

In the next eleven ODIs, initially, he failed against India with scores of two and 10 and New Zealand with 34 and 16 (not out).

Imam was once again flooded with negative comments, calling him only good for lower-ranked teams as he has scored 80 and 83 against Afghanistan and Bangladesh, respectively.

However, he exhibited his class against South Africa, scoring 86, 101 and 71 runs in the challenging conditions in the land of Proteas.

Afterwards, when Imam got ridiculously consistent with his performances, scoring centuries and half-centuries one after another, his critiques changed the stance.

Some of them argued that he is a good batter, but the way he was selected was not justified (Tanveer Ahmed said the same).

Meanwhile, the rest dubbed him a selfish player even after he played a mammoth 151-run innings off 131 balls against England on their backyard in a losing cause.

It has been almost five years since the left-handed batter played his first ODI and so far there has not been a slight dip in his form.

Since the debut of Imam, he has been the fifth-highest scorer in the world in ODIs with 2,520, just behind India’s Virat Kohli (3,544), West Indies’ Shai Hope (3,289), India’s Rohit Sharma (3,250) and his captain Babar Azam (2,987).

He has been by far the most consistent performer in Pakistan’s batting ranks after the skipper Babar but Still, the same people who call Babar ‘King Babar’, are not ready to recognise Imam’s contribution to the team’s success and also somewhat Babar’s success.

Imam has arguably been the calming factor for Babar as well and they love to bat together. The duo averages around 78 runs per partnership, the highest ever in the 50-over format for pairs who have played 25 or more innings together.

Silently and steadily, the nephew of Inzamam made his way to the top of the world. In the recent International Cricket Council Men’s ODI Batting Ranking, Imam replaced India’s rusted run machine Kohli from the second spot and is just behind his batting pal, Babar, who is sitting on the throne.

Despite the unmatched success and unreal career stats, the 26-year-old is just a couple of failures away from being trolled and ridiculed once again.

He is just a few bad innings away when Pakistan fans will again start questioning his place in the team. In fact, some fans still want him to be dropped and the argument they present is the slow strike rate.

Sadly, probably he is one such player who might never win experts’ and fans’ support and the man himself acknowledges this fact.

“In the last five years ever since I have made my debut for Pakistan, I have learnt that as a nation, if we don’t want to accept someone’s good work. We just won’t no matter what happens,” he said earlier while talking to Bol News. “Therefore, I know that despite having such good performances, where I average more than 50 runs per innings in ODIs, people often talk about why I am not being dropped from the side so imagine what they would do if I were going through a rough patch.”

During his brief five-year-long career, he has developed nerves of steel. He gets such heavy criticism, but all he does is get his head down and perform at the best of his capacity. At the start of his career, he did some aggressive gestures after scoring runs, but it did not go down well.

Those gestures were probably an outcome of frustration. The frustration of not being recognised despite being outstanding.

The youngster must have been affected by all this negativity around him and he revealed that at a point he wanted to quit the game he loved.

“I don’t pay attention to what other people think about me. That’s not my job and that’s something I cannot control either,” he maintained. “I have faced situations in my life where I felt like leaving cricket altogether because no matter what I do, people will always talk about how a relative of mine was the former Pakistan captain.”

Imam wants to avoid whatever is going around and merely focus on staying strong mentally and performing well. “I believe that as of now, my journey is all about staying strong mentally.”

LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 05: Imam Ul-Haq of Pakistan plays a shot during the Group Stage match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 between Pakistan and Bangladesh at Lords on July 05, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Christopher Lee-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND – JUNE 26: Imam-ul-Haq of Pakistan vents his frustration during the Group Stage match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 between New Zealand and Pakistan at Edgbaston on June 26, 2019 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Andy Kearns/Getty Images)