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Follow UsWhile beginning their cricket journeys, most new cricketing nations build their squad around their stronger suit. For most of them, it’s bowling. The story wasn’t different for Afghanistan, either.
When Afghan cricket rose from the decrepit refugee camps of Peshawar and started making its mark at the international level, their bowlers, especially the spinners, were their claim to fame. And then Rashid Khan arrived, became a global T20 superstar, and changed how Afghanistan and the world looked at Afghan cricket.
In this environment, where spinners (mostly leg spinners) were raining like cats and dogs in the Afghan cricket circuit, a world-class batter is what they required. Their spin bowling could restrict the best batting lineups of the world on paltry totals. However, the promise vaporized like camphor when it was time to score those runs.
Amidst this, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, having made his T20I debut in 2019, was bubbling beneath the surface. There was potential — a lot of it.
There are very few strong front-foot batters in Afghanistan who can hit pace with ease. Even rarer are those who could charge down the pitch and hit them wherever they want. Gurbaz could do both and look highly aesthetic while doing that.
Performances were bound to follow. While his strike rate never dipped below 135 in all the years he has played for Afghanistan, his inconsistency plagued his side. He gave quick starts, but in the team that he was, the other batters weren’t of his talent or pedigree. Hence, many of the quick-fire 30s he hit didn’t translate into wins as much as they should have.
His impact on the Afghan team becomes even more apparent when you see that he averages 40.45 with a strike rate of 143.6 in the games that Afghanistan has won since 2023. That strike rate climbs to 161.1, and his average goes to 55.83, batting first in that period.
There’s a strong relation between Gurbaz scoring runs and Afghanistan winning games, especially when batting first. The reason becomes apparent when you look at the current Afghan batting order.
Mohammad Nabi (average 33.62 and strike rate 131.2) is the only batter other than Gurbaz in the lineup who averages above 25 and has struck above 130 since 2023. While the likes of Ibrahim Zadran and Najibullah Zadran have been able batters in the format, they have failed to bat consistently at high strike rates. Whereas Gulbadin Naib and Rashid have been great with the bat, their cameos haven’t lasted long enough for them to make an impact on the result of the game regularly.
That’s why someone of Gurbaz's ability, whose defensive technique (at least on the balls that move into him) is solid enough to bat throughout the innings, gets out a lot in the powerplay itself, trying to accumulate quick runs as the other end is mostly dry.
When he’s given that freedom to perform by being in well-stacked batting lineups, he’s a different batter. While he’s still to light up the franchise cricket league circuit globally, his constant presence in leagues from Sri Lanka to the Caribbean is a testament that teams worldwide value what he has to add at the top.
Along with spin stars Rashid, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, and Nabi, he’s the other globetrotting Afghan wooing fans with his generosity and melodious playlist of Bollywood bangers.
That ability, which has made him such a good addition to any T20 squad in the world, has been on display in all its glory in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024.
Afghanistan have only played two group-stage games so far and have won both of those with immense ease. Their net run rate (NRR) of +5.225 is akin to Burj Khalifa in comparison to other teams. And it’s that man, Afghanistan’s brightest burning batting star, who’s right at the centre of this glorious performance.
In Afghanistan’s first game of the tournament, he obliterated Uganda, scoring 76 runs at a strike rate of 168.8 with four sixes and as many fours. If the quality of the opposition degraded the perceived standards of his innings, his next knock shut up mouths left, right and centre.
Batting on a double-paced track in Guyana, Gurbaz carried the Afghan innings on his shoulder. He ran down the pitch and smashed Trent Boult for a four and a six, and once the leader of the Kiwi bowling was taken down, he walloped almost everyone who came on to bowl to him. Only Mitchell Santner’s miserly spin could douse his fire for a bit.
What was even more pleasing from Gurbaz and Afghanistan’s perspective in these two innings is the clear pattern of him improving his hitting of good length balls against pace.
Gurbaz only has a strike rate of 117.8 and an average of 19.9 against deliveries pitched on a good length from the pacers in his T20I career. However, he’s yet to get out on them and is striking the good length deliveries at 144.4. Even the back-of-a-length ones have been hit at 138.5 — a massive improvement on his overall record.
The sample size of two games is small, sure. However, on tracks where the ball doesn’t rush the batter often, Gurbaz can always charge the pacers and hit them over the infield. Since 2023, he averages 37 and strikes at at 205.6 whenever he charges down the pitch. So, it seems he has found a method to combat that apparent weakness.
That’s what you want to see in a young batter, right? That ability to still improve after playing cricket throughout the year! Not only does that make the batter better, but it also accentuates the other qualities of the batter hidden in the hazardous cacophonies of failures.
For instance, Gurbaz is a great hitter of slower balls. In the two games he has played in this World Cup, he has hit 47 runs off the 24 slower deliveries he faced. On slow tracks of the West Indies, where cutters and a variety of slower deliveries are go-to options for bowlers, Gurbaz becomes a lethal batter.
Although his numbers against leg spinners are a bit poor, it’s clear that Gurbaz has enough talent, capability, and performance to carry Afghanistan’s batting on his shoulders. That's why he has already overtaken Jos Buttler to become the wicketkeeper-batter with second-most number of 75+ scores in T20I cricket.
If he’s able to improve his dismissal rate in the powerplay and bat deep, Afghanistan can be assured of a par or even above-par total every time that happens. To ensure that, he has some good support around him in the batting order.
When Gurbaz was young, his brother burnt his bat because his family wasn’t supportive of his cricket. That same Afghan boy whose bat was once burnt for playing cricket has now become the spark on the cusp of igniting some brave dreams in Afghan cricket.
And bravery, as newspapers have taught us, is as commonplace in Afghanistan as Kebabs, carpets, and now cricket.
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