da apostaganha： By deed, if not by sight, the exploits of Rizwan Cheema of Canada havetravelled well
Osman Samiuddin in Hambantota19-Feb-2011
After his savaging of England in the warm-up game, Rizwan Cheema has Sri Lanka in his sights•Getty Images
By deed, if not by sight, the exploits of Rizwan Cheema of Canada havetravelled well. There is the start: 89 0ff 69 balls and 61 off 45 againstthe West Indies in 2008, nine sixes off men such as Jerome Taylor, DarrenPowell and Kemar Roach. There is the 2008 Shoaib Akhtar encounter, whereour hero lofted him for six over long on off the third ball of theirintroduction, having told his family as he left the house that morningthat he would do so.There is the strike rate: 121.38 in T20s and 119.4 in ODIs. There are theten sixes in a T20I tournament in Canada, more than anyone includingShahid Afridi and Sanath Jayasuriya. For this tournament he warmed up witha 70-ball 93 against England and though it wasn’t recorded, he likelyscared the bejeebers out of them.At practice in the magnificent but isolated Mahinda Rajapakse stadium inHambantota on Friday evening, the most relentless drive to hit balls,every single ball, as high, hard and handsome as possible was Cheema’s.Not all connected but the ones that did were pure, clean hits, of the kindthat bring movement around to a halt.Canada’s foremost cricket analyst Faraz Sarwat notes that a Cheema hand isessentially a “primal” joy. It is basedessentially, as for so many subcontinent players, on hand-eyecoordination. The range of shots is not expansive and not technicallyattuned, but if the ball falls in an area he likes, lord help the bowler.Asked to describe himself as a batsman after practice, Cheema smiled andsaid, “Hard-hitting….I like to hit the ball.”A pause, another smile. “Out of the park.”It says something for pure talent that he has managed the deeds that hehas. Climatically, Canada is not given to cricket. “The set-up isn’t greatthere because only four months out of the year do we have a chance to playoutdoors and rest of year it snows,” he says. “Right now it’s minus 30there. So we’re totally opposite to cricket weather-wise but still we tryindoor practices and since we qualified, we’ve played outside Canada inthe winter. There are indoor facilities but that’s only matting, notturf.”Some players have at least been given central contracts so that there areseven full-time professionals in the side. The chances of a plumberrunning through a team have receded, though for the sake of a tale, it isa little loss. And as any self-respecting big team has done or still does,there were serious grumbles about the squad for the tournament, inparticular the omission of Ian Bilcliff and Geoff Barnett.A young squad has thus arrived, including five players from the Under-19 side.There has been quarter-final talk but Cheema, understandably for a32-year-old perhaps, is more realistic. “We’ve been working hard foralmost a year now preparing for this. We’ll try to win three games that isthe goal. Realistically we’re not going to win the World Cup but we’retrying to make sure we go out and take lots of positives from here, maybereaching the second round.”Soon he will come across his former countrymen. Shoaib might be around aswell, hoping to reacquaint. Cheema is, of course, from Gujranwala and onlymoved to Canada in 2000, having played club level stuff in Pakistan andidolised Imran Khan. He initially wanted to play only recreationally inToronto but ended up in the Toronto and District Association League and,from 2005 onwards, began to do the kind of things he is now known by: 161off 61 balls (eight fours, 15 sixes), a 145 with 15 fours and nine sixes.He only qualified for Canada selection in 2008.”I played against them in Canada in 2008. It’s always a good feelingplaying against players you grow up following and the team you want to bein from your heart, but fortunately I’m playing for Canada now. I want tomake a hundred that is my main goal, maybe against Pakistan. The 93against England has given me lots of confidence.”It is not something he lacks particularly but it is on the hope that suchplayers might do something, no matter how brief or how lost the cause -even one shot – that you remember forever after, it is on such hope that aWorld Cup also runs.Given his age, there might not be another chance for Cheema. Given theICC, there might not be another for Canada either.