Abu Dhabi: Pakistan’s man of the moment Zulfiqar Babar, who made the Australians dance to his spin tunes in the first Test, attributes his success to his never-give-up attitude. “I never thought that I will never be able to make a comeback. I wanted to keep working hard and always thought whenever I get an opportunity, I will grab it and try to do well for the country,” said the 35-year-old left-arm spinner Babar, who along with Yasir Shah picked up 14 wickets between them to bowl Pakistan to an impressive 221-run victory.
Babar’s contribution was more significant as the Pakistan bowling attack was thought to be one of the weakest in history, as the bowling quartet had only 10 Test matches between themselves and the win was Pakistan’s first Test triumph against Australia in four years.
It was here in the UAE last year that Babar made his Test debut against South Africa and despite doing reasonably well, he was left in the cold and missed the back-to-back series against Sri Lanka. “God very well knows when to give someone what he needs and how much to give,” asserted Babar, adding, he was not disappointed that he was not picked to play for Pakistan early in his career.
“I have never got that feeling that I should have played before and if that would have happened, I would have taken more wickets. I always hoped that I will play for Pakistan and work hard. As soon as I got the opportunity, I performed.”
Babar, who made his T20 debut in July 2013 against West Indies to become one of the oldest Pakistani players to do so, aged 34 after Inzamam-ul-Haq (36 years), even had to face some testing times at the domestic level. His progress was hindered as he missed several seasons of first-class cricket. It was like turning up for matches and hoping if he would get a chance to play.
“Till the time I’m fit, I will continue to keep playing and the perfect example of that is Misbah [ul-Haq] and Younis Khan. The way they are fit, I will say I will try to follow them and will try to put in the same hard work they are putting in.”
Babar also hailed the performance of leggie Shah, saying the latter supported him well from the other end. “We have played a lot of first-class cricket and we both have played together for a long time. The combination between us was great. The credit goes to the boys as they have worked really hard. Two players made debuts and it looked as if they were matured players and playing since a long time,” said Babar, who troubled the Aussie batting line with his mystery delivery — the slider.
“Yes, that has been my weapon. I have been working hard on that for a long time. I use to try to get couple of breaks in the over to get that drift and that happened. I got that and I was successful in getting wickets.”
Coach Waqar Younis was also all praise for Babar, saying that though late, it was great that the world got a chance to see a quality bowler. “Babar has serious quality; he has been performing well in the domestic season and never got the chance.”