Published: 02:15 AM, 22 July 2018
Fakhar's journey from navy to cricket
Fakhar Zaman celebrates his double century against Zimbabwe. -Getty
Were it not for one or two twists of fate, Fakhar Zaman might have been watching Pakistan's tour of Zimbabwe on television, from the mess deck of one of the nine or so frigates that patrol Pakistan's 650 mile coastline along the Arabian Sea.
But in an enjoyable narrative twist instead, the man who found cricket while serving in the navy has travelled thousands of miles to a tiny landlocked Southern African country - and become the first Pakistani batsman to score a double-hundred in a one-day international.
"Today was my day," Fakhar said after his historic innings. This innings did indeed seem fated, and Fakhar also explained that - ever the navy man - he was only acting under orders from his coach Mickey Arthur. "Mickey told me before the toss that if we win the toss we will bat first and 'I want you to score a double-hundred'", Fakhar explained. "So I applied myself today and scored one."
"Some coaches like giving their players totals to go for and targets, some people play better under those pressures and some people feel the pressure more than others," said Pakistan batting coach Grant Flower. "It just depends on your players." Clearly, Fakhar is comfortable under pressure. Since he got to Zimbabwe three weeks ago, he has scored 708 runs in just nine innings, averaging over 55 in the T20 tri-series and a whopping 430 across the four ODIs played so far, being dismissed just once.
His 210 not out on Friday included 29 boundaries - the most in an ODI innings by a Pakistan batsman - and is all the more remarkable considering he hadn't even faced a ball until the fourth over of the innings. With his 24th and final four, belted to the cover boundary, he reached a summit 200 runs high, writing himself indelibly into the record books and Pakistani cricketing lore.
"It's a great achievement," said Flower, who is in his fifth year as Pakistan's batting coach and has overseen Fakhar's rise from rookie to record breaker. "I've done a lot of work with him in the nets, but he's got a lot of natural talent and he's worked really hard. Coming from his background, being in the navy and being very raw when he first came into the set-up, his technique has come a long way.
But he's still got a lot of his naturalness, and I think that's his biggest asset." Fakhar's double hundred is, of course, only part of the story, one well worth telling. As a teenager, he moved from his home in Katlang, just north of Mardan, to Karachi and joined the navy at his father's behest.
