Pakistan has developed somewhat of a gluttony for all-rounders. And it makes sense.
As cricket has evolved, we have increasingly been assessing players and performances based on utility, impact and numbers, instead of drawing decontextualised conclusions based on skill alone.
It is important to be good, yes, as it always has been. But now, being good simply isn’t enough – the real question is: you may be good, but are you also useful?
Of course, it all sounds a bit pedantic when you put it this way, because the skill itself is a measure of utility. The better you are, the more useful you can be for your team.
But this might exactly be why the notion of a pure all-rounder, as opposed to being a batter who can bowl or vice versa, is so captivating.
If you can score runs with the bat, and save the same runs with the ball, and dismiss the opposition in the process, and do all of those things well, there is little anyone can hold over you.
So then you must understand, that pure all-rounders, as they come, are rare.
This, then, puts into perspective the sort of performances Arafat Minhas is putting in so early into his career.
Arafat is one of those players that just is an all-rounder. Some of them luck into the reality — discover that they can roll their arm over more-than-adequately, or realise that some of the shots they play while coming out to bat down the order can pass as good batting (think Naseem Shah and a certain set of sixes).
Others are a bit more deliberate with their polishing — adding more tools to their repertoire to amass as much utility as possible.
Arafat makes it look innate, even though it is anything but.
It wasn’t just that he, along with Hasan Nawaz, batted Pakistan out of a tricky situation in their One-day International tri-series match against England on Tuesday, where the Green Shirts had first found themselves at 81-4, and then at 133-5.
Or that he dismissed Tom Banton and, more importantly, Harry Brook, to trigger his exceptional six-wicket haul that would take Pakistan convincingly over the line.
What was particularly remarkable about Arafat during the game was that he managed to take Pakistan out of situations that normally result in the team sinking further down.
The top four faltering with the bat has often meant the rest of the line-up is more or less fated to fall similarly, while an uninspiring start with the ball has led to many panicked instances of waywardness.
But Arafat dug in, at first complementing Hasan’s free-flowing and match-defining 74-ball-79, before accelerating to finish at 59 runs off 58 balls, his late assault including three exquisite boundaries off consecutive deliveries off Sonny Baker’s bowling.
“When I went out to bat, Hasan was batting with me and we had discussed that we need to build a partnership and we will go deep,” he said to the broadcaster in a post-match show.
He added that the two targeted to “ to reach 200 in 40 overs and then assess the situation for the last ten overs,” and that Hasan’s intent meant that neither were under any pressure during their partnership.
“This calculation is very important in a 50-over match.”
It was also encouraging signs for Pakistan that hurdles in both innings did not lead to panicked decision-making by the players, rather, they were intuitively battled through with genuinely good cricket, especially by Arafat.
He dismissed opener Tom Banton after a blitzing 57, but the real treat was his delivery to dismiss Harry Brook, a player who has been so ruthlessly good against Pakistan across formats.
“As a left-arm spinner, when I bowled Harry Brook, that was very important,” he said.
“And it will remain a memorable delivery, because it is a dream ball for a left-arm spinner [for the ball] to beat the batsman and hit the stumps.”
Arafat’s prowess floating to the top is particularly encouraging for Pakistan in the context of the 50-over World Cup approaching next year, the marquee event this tri-series is meant to begin building towards.
Pakistan had a disappointing show last time out in India, but what was particularly disappointing was how the team’s spin arsenal fared even in favourable conditions — a dire set of sporting circumstances that culminated in the team’s first ever ODI loss to Afghanistan.
Usama Mir scalped four wickets in four matches, while Shadab Khan managed only two in three.
While the upcoming set of challenges in Africa will most certainly come with different conditions than those the team met in India, having players like Arafat be part of the process is a start in rectifying old lacking.
“Saim had bowled before me, and he told me that the ball was holding a little bit,” he said, speaking in a video reflection posted on the Pakistan Cricket Board’s social media handles, adding that communication of this sort was crucial in longer games, reflecting his sentiment about planning out the partnership with Hasan.
A five-wicket haul on debut against Australia, and a half-century with six wickets — something previously only achieved by Abdul Razzaq and Shahid Afridi for Pakistan — against England in his fifth ODI means that the big shoes that Arafat will hope to continue filling in his career could well be his own.
Waqar Younis asked him as much, whether his early success means the expectations are all the more lofty.
He replied that the work it took to get to this stage, was simply only to get to this stage.
“This was not the goal, the goal is much bigger and farther ahead. I’m thankful for the performances that I have been able to put in at this stage at the start of my career, but I have to do a lot more,” he said.
No skill in cricket is innate, or can be taken for-granted as such. Arafat, who was, in his own words, handed the hard ball by his father to bowl spin at the age of eight or nine, can probably attest to that. But if he keeps making all-round excellence look as sublime as he did yesterday, this sentiment might require some reckoning.