New Delhi: In 2010, Junaid Siddique had been selected in Pakistan’s U-19 camp but never made the squad of 15. In the subsequent years he tried playing first class cricket but the result was the same as no team picked him in Pakistan.
As his family’s financial burden fell on his shoulders, Siddique decided to move to Dubai in 2014, doing odd jobs, including being an assistant at a grocery store packing bags. But his love for cricket never died, playing cricket whenever and wherever he could during his free time.
That same passion made the 33-year-old clinch career-best figures of 5/35 in his four overs to help the United Arab Emirates beat Canada by five wickets in a Group D clash of the T20 World Cup. Siddique’s spell at the Ferozeshah Kotla helped them restrict Canada to 150/7 in their 20 overs before UAE chased down the target with two balls to spare.
“When I moved to the UAE I saw that people were crazy for cricket. So I also joined in. Kaam dhund hi raha tha jab cricket mil gai (I was looking for a job when cricket found me),” said Siddique, who was named Player-of-the-Match on Friday.
Siddique’s spell is not just the second best bowling figures of the ongoing T20 World Cup (best being Windies bowler Romario Shepherd’s 5/20 vs Scotland last week), he also became only the third UAE bowler to pick up a five-wicket haul in T20Is.
Last October, his passion helped him getting picked up by International League T20 franchise Sharjah Warriorz for $170,000 despite a base price of $10,000 in the auction, resulting in an unexpected windfall for him and his family.
Regular wickets
Every time the Canadian batters looked to accelerate, the Multan-born dented their hopes, chipping in with a wicket every now and then to remove four of their top six batters.
“When I came in to bowl, the slower ball was working well so I wanted to maximise it, bowling back-to-back slower deliveries. I worked on that. The ball was getting stuck in the wicket. I wanted to bowl into the wicket. Early on, we got a little bit of help from the wicket too,” said Siddique, who now lives in Sharjah and made his UAE debut in 2019.
UAE didn’t start well in their chase as they were reeling at 66/4 in the 13th over. But a brilliant 84-run fifth wicket partnership between Ghaziabad-born Aryansh Sharma and Gaya-born Sohaib Khan took them to their target. While Aryansh hit an unbeaten knock of 74 off 53 balls, Sohaib, who studied sociology at Jamia Millia Islamia here, hammered a 29-ball 51 to take UAE home.
“The target of 150 looked easy at the start but we got stuck in the middle. But Sohaib and Aryansh finished the match off for us,” added Sidddique.
