Sarfraz Nawaz

In our last issue, we revealed Max Walker as the first man to employ reverse swing at international level. There’s some irony about the first time he used it: it was against Pakistan, and Sarfraz Nawaz was in the team Max destroyed. Years later, it was as though Aussies had never heard of reverse swing, and Sarfraz returned it, with interest.

ROBERT DRANE

Australians remember Sarfraz as the feisty 198cm Pakistani fast-medium who always took wickets against us; the moustachioed bandit who deprived the Aussies of certain, easy victory at the MCG in 1978-79, when, at 3-305, chasing 382, they were cruising, Border on 105, Kim Hughes 84. The Aussies needed a mere 77 more when Sarfraz unleashed such extraordinary and unexpected mayhem, questions needed to be asked – but since this was 1978-79, no-one knew what those questions might be, and Max Walker was no longer in the national Test team. Certainly, the expectations of the Aussie batsmen were not geared toward a ball swinging in the opposite direction to the one they anticipated when they watched it released. So Sarfraz’s breathtaking display of swing and seam was never reported as a…

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Inside Cricket (Digital) - 1 Issue, January 2017

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