Book excerpt: Zarawani and the decision to face Donald without a helmet

As the world’s second most popular sport, cricket is much richer and more diverse than many realise. Globally, passionate players give up holidays, time with loved ones and hard-earned money to achieve the extraordinary and play for their country. Afghanistan, whose captain grew up on a refugee camp, will play in the 2015 World Cup not just in spite of the Taliban but partly because of them. In Ireland, cricket has reawakened after a century of dormancy - but can they achieve their aim of Test cricket and end the player drain to England? These tales resonate far beyond cricket, touching on war, sectarianism and even women’s rights. [caption id=“attachment_2093291” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The Second XI book cover.[/caption] Second XI: Cricket in its Outposts explains why an Emirati faced Allan Donald armed only with a sunhat; whether cricket will succeed in China and America; what happened when Kenya reached the World Cup semi-finals, and how cricket in the Netherlands almost collapsed after two bad days. Here is an excerpt from the book: Few balls become iconic. There was Eric Hollies dismissing Don Bradman for a duck in his final Test innings to deprive him of averaging 100. Shane Warne’s ‘ball of the century’ to Mike Gatting. Trevor Chappell rolling a delivery along the ground under instructions from his brother. For many, if you ask them about cricket in the United Arab Emirates there is an equally memorable moment. Allan Donald was the bowler. The batsman was Sultan Mohammad Zarawani. He was the captain of the UAE, the only native of that country in the side, and pretty much a club cricketer. He walked out to bat wearing a sun hat. In 1996 there was no one bowling faster and with more venom than Donald. It is not often that a nickname is as fitting as Donald’s ‘White Lightning’ moniker. Facing him as a player with international pedigree was a daunting prospect. To do so as a man with a batting average of just above four in ODIs, not wearing a helmet was, quite frankly, a bit daft. ‘This helmet thing made me claustrophobic, I never wore one,’ Zarawani told me. ‘And they were still quite new at the time.’ As the UAE skipper marked his guard to face that first delivery you could tell what was going to happen. Of course Donald bounced him first ball. Of course it hit him straight on the head. Zarawani swayed on his feet. He searched around for his sun hat, as if that was all that he needed at that very moment. He faced another six balls, he didn’t score a run. He was taken straight to hospital. By the time Zarawani arrived at the World Cup, his body was no longer his to control. He had received three operations on his knees and was having regular cortisone injections just to enable him to play through the pain. He spent 24 hours in bed before every game to get into a fit state to play. ‘I wasn’t meant to walk, forget about playing. Between overs I couldn’t even change positions, that is how badly I was affected. I couldn’t even feel my knees or my toes but my will was to play in the World Cup because I had given so much to get there. I said on my dead body am I going to let my knees ruin this dream of mine.’ He was 35 but his knees were those of a much older man. On top of that, he was a lower-order batsman facing the quickest bowler in the world. In a sun hat. ‘It was just a very good bouncer, it bounced just right in front of me. I didn’t have the reaction time and with these wobbly knees I couldn’t even bend down.’ He is very stoical about it, and although it became a big issue at the time he says he had no ill feeling toward Donald, although he admits to calling him a name or two in the immediate aftermath. ‘It just grazed my head, it didn’t hit me bang on. It looked bad, it shocked me a bit, and I was a bit nervous afterwards. I was more camera conscious than worried about being hit by Donald.’ Thankfully there were no lasting effects but Donald said in his autobiography that as he watched Zarawani tumble to the ground he thought that he had killed him. In fairness, Donald was not alone in thinking that. Watching it at the time, I could hear my father make a sharp intake of breath. I think I shouted. Was he brave or stupid? Is the line between the two all that clear? While the image of a visibly shaken Zarawani searching for his head gear is one that endures, his contribution to cricket in his country is much more significant than that. He was well-thought of by those he led in the World Cup, all of whom speak of him in reverential terms to this day. While there was talk of sports cars and fabulous wealth that gave you the impression of some sort of playboy millionaire, it is clear that Zarawani had a great love for cricket. He wasn’t a terrible cricketer, even if he was no batsman. He bowled leg spin well enough to dismiss Sachin Tendulkar in an ODI with a ball that dipped, turned and took the edge through to the wicketkeeper. It was his one wicket in the match, but what a wicket! While he may have struggled in the rarefied air of international cricket, you could imagine him picking up bucketloads of wickets in Premier League cricket in England or in the Australian Grades. He says the World Cup adventure was his doing. It was him that brought the team together. He says he was the one who paid for the airfare to the World Cup; it was him who arranged the fundraising events. When he wanted to practice at the Sharjah Stadium owned by Abdul Rahman Bukhatir, he had to pay out of his own pocket for the privilege. He even negotiated for the permission for the team to go to the tournament. Bukhatir was the man behind bringing cricket to Sharjah in the early 1980s. He arranged for international cricket to be played there in sponsored tournaments known as the Sharjah Cup. The stadium continues to be used for high class cricket until this day. It had modest beginnings, but it is now a 16,000-seat floodlit venue. In 1994, Zarawani’s team had qualified for the World Cup in a tournament in Kenya where the UAE had achieved 12 straight victories. He wanted his team to play against India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Australia in that year’s Sharjah event. ‘I called Abdul Rahman Bukhatir from Nairobi and said, “Can we play in this Austral-Asia Cup?” First they were resistant. I literally threatened that I would go to the press if they didn’t let us play.’ The tournament organisers gave in and the UAE were allowed to play. That first game of the Sharjah-based event was against India where Zarawani dismissed Tendulkar. The UAE lost both of the games by a wide margin in that event, but they were not overawed by their opponents. Despite doing so much for UAE cricket, despite getting to a World Cup through force of will, he walked away from the game. Shahzad Altaf was one of those who played under Zarawani and he cannot speak of him highly enough. It is with real sadness that Altaf says, after the 1996 World Cup, ‘Mr Sultan Zarawani never entered a ground.’ Zarawani fell out with those in charge and took his sun-bleached hat with him. Speaking to Zarawani was not easy. I managed to contact him only after a lot of graft and perseverance. I had begged for his contact details on Twitter. I had sent Facebook messages to the account of a bar I was told he owned. I finally got his number and called him. When I spoke to him, he asked me to e-mail him details of the project. I sent him the proposal for this book and awaited a response. The deadline was looming and I still had not heard. I called again. No answer. I resolved to give it one last go; he answered, he said he would speak to me. He explained that he hadn’t wanted to talk as he was done with UAE cricket. I said that without his story none of this would make sense. Zarawani tells me, ‘You won’t like what I have to say’; he doesn’t want to be critical but that is the way he feels. ‘After qualifying and after playing in the World Cup we came back and expected to make the World Cup a way to take things forward and we could have achieved so much more,’ he said. ‘But nobody did anything, apart from firing me and putting a ban on me for life.’ When he talks of the way the relationship broke down, he says, ‘After the World Cup they didn’t want me. And I didn’t fight it at all.’ He wanted to do things his way and that was not something that those in charge at the time felt comfortable with. He says he was too much of a powerful force, that they wanted him out. ‘I was not under their control. I was never going to be a yes man to them. My love for the game was different. They don’t have the love of the game. I wanted to play cricket at this level. To feel it, to taste it. And I did it.’ Since Zarawani’s departure, there have been few Emirati cricketers in the team. The reasons for this are both cultural and political. For those who are UAE citizens, cricket isn’t their sport. It is the game of the wastelands and workers. It is what the people who arrived in their country to build their hotels, skyscrapers and roads brought with them from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, England and more recently, Afghanistan. While cricket is everywhere in the Emirates, played on every scrap of land that can be commandeered for the purpose, it does not belong to the country. If you liked what you read, you can pick up a copy of the book here – Second XI: Cricket in its Outposts.