His Wanindu Hasaranga celebration might stay in the memory, but what Abrar Ahmed achieved with the ball against Sri Lanka was nothing short of stupendous
Danyal Rasool24-Sep-2025Wanindu Hasaranga is barely a year older than Abrar Ahmed, but looked like an older man gently putting down a young upstart. Abrar, with a slightly impudent grin on his face, seemed to be convincing Hasaranga he had meant no offence. Not that Hasaranga, who wore a grin at least as equally broad, needed much convincing.He gave Abrar a pat on the head, the two men slapped each other’s chests and shoulders, and Abrar walked away still sporting the smile as he savoured successfully ribbing his ounterpart. Hasaranga gave him a parting pat on the back of the head and, as things tend to be between Sri Lanka and Pakistan, everything was swiftly all right once more.Perhaps the interaction took that slightly paternalistic tone because it is so easy to infantilise Abrar – and he appears to revel in it. He was the baby-faced 17-year-old who broke in at the PSL in a different lifetime. Even when, several years and debilitating back injuries later, he made his debut in Pakistan’s Test side, he was the smooth-faced boy with the slightly kooky action and the glasses. So he got stuck with Harry Potter.Related
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A couple of years on, something resembling a beard was beginning to take shape and the glasses were replaced by contacts when he cleaned up Shubman Gill with a legspinner’s dream of a delivery at the Champions Trophy. By now, it was the wantonly provocative celebration, a flick of the head to send the batter on his way, that set the stage for both imitation and mockery, which Hasaranga deployed as such an effective counter to Abrar’s decision to appropriate the Sri Lankan’s celebration when he dismissed him earlier.It is pictures of that interaction that will dominate the way this game is committed to memory. Just like in 2022 when Abrar’s look – rather than the fact that he had become the first spinner to take five wickets in a session on debut in a Test match, is the dominant recollection from that day. Just like his unique send-off – rather than the quality of the ball that undid Gill – is what anyone remembers of that dismissal. Just like it will invariably be little more than a footnote that Abrar had delivered the most economical spell for a spinner in Asia Cup T20 history – eight runs in four overs.While a lot of players strain to imbue their game and personality with gravitas, Abrar is much more content hiding his behind the joy he takes from the game. It should not, however, detract from how valuable his role is to his side, or how seriously he takes it.
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On Sunday, in a nightmare of a game against India, Abrar bore the brunt against Abhishek Sharma and Shubman Gill, his 42 in four the most expensive figures for his side. Until two weeks earlier, he had all but lost his place in Pakistan’s T20I side to left-arm wristspinner Sufiyan Muqeem, the new shiny toy, even if it does the same things as the old one and not as reliably. Muqeem is still in the squad and Pakistan’s selection fingers perpetually hover on the trigger. It’s a tough gig being a spinner judged by match figures when your stock in trade is taking risks, be it running through variations that are nearly impossible to execute accurately every time, or bowling in the powerplay.Sri Lanka and Pakistan had found themselves in similar situations today around the eight-over mark, each having lost four wickets after bright powerplays. In the chase, Pakistan managed to pull away from Sri Lanka’s bowlers, but Abrar had afforded Sri Lanka’s batters no such courtesy.He waltzed through his skillset with the easy confidence of a pianist hitting every note, fingers dancing on the keystrokes. He went wide outside off to Kamindu Mendis and Hasaranga, floating a couple of balls up. He fizzed a couple through with the back of the hand, and inverted his fingers, keeping the googly in play.Wanindu Hasaranga celebrates a wicket with the Abrar Ahmed celebration•MB Media/Getty ImagesA legspinner’s currency is wickets, and true, he only got the one – that of Hasaranga’s, which triggered that playful miming of the telephone celebration that the Sri Lankan was so keen to pay back with interest. But so wary did Sri Lanka become of the wicket-taking threat Abrar posed that thwarting it was all they had the bandwidth to deal with, run-scoring relegated to a trifling afterthought.Of his 24 balls, Sri Lanka played attacking shots to just two, the lowest for any bowler in a completed spell all tournament. No delivery yielded more than a single run, and 16 produced nothing more than a straight bat brought down in surrender. In the seven overs between the start of his spell and its conclusion, Sri Lanka scraped a mere 26 runs, the second-fewest in a similar phase this Asia Cup. It sent the Sri Lanka innings into a spiral it would never recover from, and left Hasaranga and company much too little to work with in their bid to thwart Abrar and his team.Shortly after the game was done, Abrar posted on his Instagram account. Abrar is not a prolific user of social media, but you could forgive him for making an exception on a day of such distinction. The picture, however, is one of Abrar leaning into a shot with Hasaranga, looking every inch the impertinent schoolboy who has managed to sneak into the players’ dressing room. “Great player and great man,” he said about the Sri Lankan.Hussain Talat was Player of the Match, Shaheen Afridi the leading wicket-taker, and Mohammad Nawaz the top-scorer who finished Sri Lanka off with a flourish. Abrar’s own contribution has been concealed almost entirely, with the legspinner appearing to do more than anyone else in merging into a camouflaged background. That the child in Abrar is having a good time appears to be what matters most to him, but as Sri Lanka found out today, he is, as far as spin bowling is concerned, quietly growing into Pakistan’s main man.
