How Afghanistan’s Fazalhaq Farooqi overcame difficulties and is now ready to take on the world

From young to experienced, many are set to play their first T20 World Cup when action gets underway Down Under. Before the first ball is bowled, Firstpost.com brings to you FirstCup – a special series where we chart journeys of T20 World Cup debutants.

First things first. Think about this, what were you, in fact mostly all of us, doing at the age of 22? Some of you might have just got into college, others trying to build a career in what you aspire to be the most.

Well, for 22-year-old Afghanistan cricketer Fazalhaq Farooqi, he is gearing up for his maiden ICC tournament, the ICC T20 World Cup 2022 that gets underway in Australia on 16 October.

Fazalhaq Farooqi is part of what is commonly referred to as Generation Z. Born on 22 September, 2000 in the Afghanistan city of Baghlan, where people were not usually much into cricket.

“First of all, I am from the north of Afghanistan. A lot of people know Kabul and Jalalabad. I am from the north, a province named Baghlan. At first, there wasn’t much cricket there. People played a lot of football because there was already an Afghanistan football team,” Farooqi went onto say in a video posted on Sunrisers Hyderabad’s official YouTube channel.

“When the Afghanistan national team started performing well in cricket, they started coming live on TV, then people started taking notice and then cricket started growing,” he added.

From a very young age, anyone who aspires to be a cricketer, or any other sportsperson, would aspire to do so by watching clips of that favourite sport on TV or the internet.

However, for Farooqi, getting access to watching cricket on television was a tough task.

“I was in my village, and there was no electricity. That was the biggest problem. Then another problem was that there was no TV. Here, you can get TV easily, but there was no TV either. If there was one TV, so many people say around it, there was no place for others. I was really small, so they would not allow me,” he said in the video.

“If I was peeping through the window or some other place, I used to get sent away, I wasn’t allowed. I faced a lot of difficulties in even watching matches. Until 2017, I couldn’t watch matches easily. I just wanted a time when I sit easily and watch a match. But I didn’t get that. After that, it became a little easier, now I can watch it,” the left-arm pacer recalled.

ICC U19 World Cup 2020, then becoming CSK net bowler in 2021

The ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup in 2020 was the first time when Farooqi got a chance to impress for Afghanistan at the global level. Farooqi scalped five wickets from four games, including figures of 3/33 in the seventh place playoff against South Africa U19.

2021 would turn out to be an important year as far as Farooqi’s international career is concerned. He made his T20I debut against Zimbabwe in March 2021. The same year, he would go onto become a net bowler for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Bowling to the likes of MS Dhoni is anyone’s dream, and Farooqi’s dream was finally accomplished when he got a chance to bowl against not only Dhoni, but Suresh Raina too during a nets session at IPL 2021. Farooqi impressed with some wide yorkers to Dhoni and unleashed short balls to Suresh Raina.

Farooqi gained even more experience by bowling to Moeen Ali and Faf du Plessis during CSK nets last year, and it’s safe to say that it is his impeccable line and length that stands out in his bowling.

Gig with Sunrisers Hyderabad

Impressive bowling displays saw Farooqi get a gig with Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) for IPL 2022 and although he just played three games for the franchise this season, he still managed to take a couple of wickets, and finish with best figures of 2/32.

Farooqi’s rise in international cricket has been gradual, but steady. In February this year, Farooqi dismantled the Bangladesh top and middle-order in an ODI, scalping four wickets inside just 11 balls. Tamim Iqbal, Liton Das, Mushfiqur Rahim and Yasir Ali were Farooqi’s victims that game , and none of those wickets could be taken for granted. Yet, the seamers efforts went in vain, with Bangkadesh scripting an inspired four-wicket win.

The T20I format is turning out to be Farooqi’s favourite. In the 14 matches the youngster has played, he has gone wicketless only in four of those games, and has an economy of 6.82, which can be considered very good in the shortest format.

With 17 wickets in T20Is this year, Farooqi is Afghanistan’s leading wicket-taker in the shortest format in 2022, and will certainly be the X-factor for the team Down Under.

For all the hardships and difficulties he has faced during his younger days, Farooqi’s time has finally come on the big stage. He now gets a chance to impress and set a benchmark for many others from his country. Even more so, to prove that anything impossible will be still possible for those who believe in themselves.

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