5 early-career comparisons of cricketers that failed to live up to expectations

#2 Basit Ali Javed Miandad

Basit Ali’s demeanor at the crease was remarkably similar to that of Javed Miandad

“Truly one of the great one-day innings” – exclaimed Henry Blofeld on air when Basit Ali got to a hundred on a warm November afternoon at Sharjah in 1993. His 67 ball hundred against the West Indies that day was the second fastest at the time in ODIs.

Handed a debut against the still-mighty West Indians earlier that year on Pakistan’s tour to the West Indies, the Karachi lad strutted around the crease as if he had been around for years. Showing no signs of nerves, he toyed with the West Indian pace bowling and was Pakistan’s most impressive batsman in a series that ended in a dramatic tie.

Basit Ali emerged as a precocious 22-year-old batting talent for Pakistan. Wearing a shining white helmet and occasionally sporting a cap, he walked with a swagger that was reminiscent of Javed Miandad.

He stared the opposition in the eye and with a poker-face, struck the ball to all corners of the ground. If brute power was his forte, he could employ the deft-touch just as effectively.

An immensely gifted middle-order batsman, Basit Ali could play the explosive inside-out cover drive just as well and a supremely-timed late-cut. Long before the big premeditated cross-batted hit over mid-wicket became a popular shot in Twenty20 Cricket, Basit Ali executed it with aplomb against the likes of Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose.

He was also a master of walking across the wicket and playing the leg-glance to beat short fine leg. Regardless of the stroke that he played, Basit Ali looked in total control when at the crease with a bat in hand.

Despite a whirlwind debut in the West Indies and his exploits in Sharjah, his form dipped in the 1995-96 season as he managed just one fifty. Dropped from the Pakistan World Cup team, crisis set in and it was all downhill thereafter.

With Rashid Latif, Basit made public of having been approached by a bookie to underperform in the Austral-Asia Cup final. He also spoke of Salim Malik having favoured a bookie to throw a test match in South Africa. And as the Qayyum Commission ran its investigations, Basit Ali had chosen to quietly retire from international Cricket.

Basit Ali continued to play domestic Cricket till the 1997-98 season. That said, his self-imposed seclusion from international Cricket under mysterious circumstances deprived Pakistan and the cricket world of not just a natural wonder but also the titillating prospect of witnessing the blossoming of the next Javed Miandad.