An elite sportsperson having a day can be like straddling the line between soaring and getting too close to the sun. They do things that defy sporting gods. They rise above conditions and percentages. They push the boundaries of what is possible, but always flirt with heartbreak. Especially in a team sport, when not everybody can rise to the same level.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz in Ahmedabad was one long dare to the cricketing gods. For 12-and-a-half overs of batting in regulation time, Gurbaz outshone everything around him. He scored 84 runs in seven of those overs; the rest, including extras, aggregated 37 for 3 in five-and-a-half.
No matter how much you romanticise effort and brilliance, there are conditional constraints on what is possible. There are rhythms even a contest as short as T20s follow, especially when teams are evenly matched.
South Africa’s batting and Afghanistan’s start had set the template. You could score against pace, you could exploit the shorter straighter boundaries, but once the bowlers took the pace off and went into the pitch you struggled. South Africa had the experience of having batted first, they had the taller bowlers to draw more reaction from the pitch with their slower balls, and they were isolating Gurbaz.
In the second half of the match on this pitch, Gurbaz was not supposed to be doing any of these things. Backing away and off-driving a left-arm spinner on the up and from the crease for a six over long-off. Upper-cut Kagiso Rabada for a six over wide third. Loft Keshav Maharaj over long-on for a six without using his feet.
On such tracks, spinners often sweat on batters trying to leave the crease to drive some momentum into the shot apart from the obvious purpose of getting closer to the pitch of the ball. They want to slip one wide when batters leave the crease. Gurbaz hit three sixes off pretty accurate and canny left-arm spinners from the crease. Without sweeping.
Eventually, Maharaj tossed one wide regardless, and Gurbaz tried to hit down the ground again. Bent one too many rule. Got a thick edge and found one of the taller men diving to take the catch.
We don’t know if Gurbaz ruminates. We don’t know if Gurbaz would have been less heartbroken losing this way than in the way he eventually did. But what followed only added to his bittersweet day.
Things swirled around him. Many cricketers around him must have gone through a whirlwind of emotions. Noor Ahmad, who had an ordinary day with the ball, brought Afghanistan close with two sixes. Kagiso Rabada, the grizzled veteran, one of the best Test bowlers of his time, overstepped twice in the final over but was handed a reprieve by an overeager Noor, who ran an improbable second as opposed to trusting Fazalhaq Farooqi to get one run off two balls.
Luckily, Gurbaz had Azmatullah Omarzai, who had earlier gone for 41 and been guilty of ball-watching to run out Darwish Rasooli, to do the heavy lifting in the Super Over. Farooqi, who started beautifully with the ball but didn’t dive while taking the second that never got completed, put Afghanistan ahead and then suffered agony: a bottom edge to a perfect yorker for four and then the slightest error in execution drilled for six to force another Super Over.
Rashid Khan had had a great day with both bat and ball, but chose to bowl Omarzai over himself. He then saw South Africa defend the second Super Over with a spinner and sent Mohammad Nabi out instead of Gurbaz. Nabi scored a two-ball duck.
None of these emotional rollercoasters compare to the wringer the cricketing gods put Gurbaz through. He walked out one more time with four sixes needed off four balls, off left-arm spin. Maharaj stayed away from the step-hit – a front-foot hit down the ground without leaving the crease – but provided him pace. Gurbaz went vertical bat from the back foot and used pace on the ball to hit over long-off.
Deep breath. Back to work. Maharaj tried the same ball that got Gurbaz out in regulation time, but this time he got a decent chunk on what was still a mishit. It teased the tallest man on the field, Marco Jansen, but went for the second six.
The first six was okay. Now it got serious. Now the gods teased him again. He was soaring again. The inches were on his side. Deep breath. Back to work. Now Maharaj erred. Not only did he provide Gurbaz pace, he also bowled fullish, into his swinging arc. He offered Gurbaz the step hit. Huge six.
Maharaj went wide again, and this time he was called. From needing only a six now there were two options. A four could force a third tiebreaker. If Maharaj kept bowling wide with no deep point, this was definitely an option. All you had to do was either clear the man overhead or find the gap either side.
Deep breath. Maharaj went wide, quite similar to how he got Gurbaz in regulation time. Back then Gurbaz went to hit down the ground and ended up edging to backward point. This time he went to hit square but didn’t get the elevation.
Gurbaz didn’t linger, didn’t show emotion. A temperate reaction to a day when he soared so high that circumstances kept asking him to fly higher and higher until he got too close to the sun. Even the crash and burn was spectacular.
