Sharjah: Cricket scorer Hakim Jariwala, who holds the world record for keeping scores in the maximum number of ODIs, has created a one-glance T10 cricket score book. Jariwala, along with his wife Nafisa, ensures that all action from this quickest format is quickly recorded and conveyed to the media.
Speaking to Gulf News, Hakim, who has been scoring in all the matches at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, which has hosted 236 ODIs to date, said: “T10 is a different experience. I have been a scorer in Test matches, ODIS and T20s. So when I heard about T10, I decided to create a new style of score sheet with only 10 overs for bowlers giving different colour for each bowler. Since the format is the shortest and quickest, I too need to be quick.”
Nafisa, who enjoys cricket devotedly, stores all the score sheets of her husband and also does the calculations to ensure that the total tallies correctly.
“On December 2013, I broke the world record when I officiated in the 215th One-Day International between Pakistan and Sri Lanka at the Sharjah Stadium,” said Hakim. “I had also scored in over 10 ODIs at the Dubai International Stadium by then. Today, I have been a scorer in over 250 matches.”
Hakim, who began scoring from the age of 18 at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, added: “I used to score with Mohammad Ali Jafri, who scored in 200 matches but passed away in 2011. We both never used to miss Sharjah matches. I must be the only scorer in the world who has officiated from one stadium for over 40 years.”
Hakim has kept the score sheets of Javed Miandad’s last-ball six, Sachin Tendulkar’s sandstorm knock and West Indies score of 333 runs and Sri Lanka’s chase which fell short of the target by just four runs.
Having been a scorer in the Pakistan Super League, Indian Premier League, Afghanistan Premier League and now T10 League, Hakim feels that cricket is today a scorer’s delight. With cricket getting shorter and faster I have to be more alert than from the time I started scoring,” he said. “Umpires, batsmen and bowlers can get away with mistakes but a scorer cannot make a mistake. With my wife by my side to help, we are a good team and hence produces the correct score.”
