Veteran middle-order batter Shoaib Malik has represented Pakistan for almost two decades and over the years, he has had some memorable moments with his mates in the dressing room.
The 40-year-old recalled one such incident during his Pakistan U19 days when they toured England. He didn’t name his then-coach out of respect, but Malik narrated a tale that left everyone on the A Sports panel in splits.
Here’s what Shoaib Malik had to share while speaking on the show, ‘The Pavilion!’ on A Sports:
“We were on U19 tour of England. We had won the first game, the second one was washed out and the third was also affected by rain and the forecast was for more rain later in the day. Our coach, I won’t take his name, told us all, ‘So jao so jao’ (Sleep off) and made us all sleep in the dressing room.”
‘Utho utho, match ho raha hai’: Shoaib Malik concludes hilarious tale
Shoaib Malik claimed that his coach didn’t know that the ground had enough equipment to get playing conditions ready once the rain stopped. No one was expecting the game to take place, but when the rain stopped and the entire ground dried up, Malik’s coach realized that he had to wake his players up.
Narrating the final part of the story, Shoaib Malik said:
“He didn’t know that they had all the equipment and they dried the ground once the rain stopped. Now the same coach who made us sleep, was kicking us and saying, ‘Utho utho, match ho raha hai’ (Wake up! we have a match to play) (laughs).”
He added:
“Somehow we woke up and realized that it’s a game of 33-overs-a-side. We scored 204 runs and thought that we will win because those many runs were a lot in those days. But we got smashed all around the ground.”
Pakistan might be pondering what could have happened had they had Malik’s experience in their middle-order in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2022. The Asian giants have so far managed to win just one out of their three games at the mega event.
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