They call him “The Fizz”. It isn't because of any connection to an aerated soft drink, but because of what he does with the ball. Mustafizur Rahman is a thin, wiry, unimposing young man from Bangladesh. But give him a cricket ball, and the 20-year-old turns into a snarling, dangerous entity who can make it bend, twist and curl at will.
Rahman burst onto the scene in 2015, toppling his big brothers from India in two successive matches and condemning them to a series defeat in Bangladesh. He took successive five-wicket hauls in the first two One Day Internationals of that series, announcing himself in fine style to an adoring cricket world.
Nearly a year on, the aura hasn’t faded. Rahman continues to bamboozle batsmen left, right and centre. He was bought by the Sunrisers Hyderabad for the ongoing Indian Premier League and has proven his weight in gold thus far. In his very first match for the franchise, against the Royal Challengers Bangalore, he took out batting stalwarts AB de Villiers and Shane Watson in successive deliveries. Against the Kolkata Knight Riders in his second outing, he dispatched Andre Russell with a delivery described by commentators as “a yorker from hell”.
Those devastating cutters
In six matches so far, Rahman has taken seven wickets at a scarcely believable average of 19.42. Nor has he allowed batsmen to take easy runs off him as demonstrated by a miserly economy rate of 6.18.
The secret of Rahman’s success is that he is unconventional, a term guilty of being overused in international sport. But Rahman is the real deal and truly is sublimely unconventional. As a left-arm fast bowler, he can be nippy and generate some extra pace. But he uses his wrist to make the ball “fizz”, cutting in and cutting out at high pace. Most batsmen in world cricket have never faced anyone like him before and struggle to pick his variations, sometimes even failing to put bat on ball.
Because of his understated nature, most batsmen continue to dismiss Rahman as a product of hype and back themselves to take him on. Kings XI Punjab opening batsman Manan Vohra certainly felt so. When the two teams met in Hyderabad last Saturday, Vohra gave him the charge on the very first ball he faced and missed by a mile.
Over the next three deliveries, Vohra barely managed to get bat on ball, utterly confounded by Rahman’s cutters. Finally, desperate to get to the other end, he took a suicidal run and ran himself out. The Fizz’s first over ended up being a maiden and he finished his quota of four overs conceding just nine runs while taking two wickets.
No home track bully
That Mustafizur Rahman was special was evident from the time he picked up eight wickets in Under-19 colours for Bangladesh in the U-19 World Cup in 2014. He lived up to his reputation in his first few months in international cricket, but the cynics carped that he could only perform on home turf. When he subsequently got injured, there was a visible fear that the stress of modern cricket had taken its toll on yet another promising young fast bowler.
But as it turned out, the fears were unfounded. After a rusty comeback at the 2016 Asia Cup in February, a more mature Mustafizur showed up at the World Twenty20. On Indian pitches quite different from the ones he was accustomed to across the border, he was incisive against Australia and India before demolishing New Zealand with a five-wicket haul in Bangladesh’s last league match. And as his performances in IPL 9 demonstrate, Mustafizur Rahman is here for the long haul.
A bowler like him is special because he has the potential to inspire a new generation of aspiring cricketers. Just as Pakistan’s Wasim Akram made reverse swing cool and Australia’s Shane Warne got the world to view leg spin as an art, it would not be fanciful to theorise that Rahman’s success has served as a stroke of inspiration for many youngsters in his cricket-crazy country. A few years down the line, do not be too surprised if Bangladesh discovers more bowlers who can do strange things with their wrists – it’ll just be The Fizz effect at play.