LAHORE: In hundreds of YouTube fan videos exploding with neon typography and 90’s graphics, Pakistan’s biggest street cricket star, Muhammad Shahbaz, turns up to bat in a skin tight shirt and a manicured moustache.
Shahbaz, nicknamed Shahbaz Kalia, or simply ‘Kalia’ in cricket circuits, has played professional tape-ball cricket for over two decades and is notorious for routinely hitting twenty runs per over. Now 47 years old, his batting record is the stuff of legends in local and international tape-ball tournaments where he gained fame for hitting continuous strings of sixes in short cricket matches, usually ten overs per innings.
The tape-ball is exactly what it sounds like: a tennis ball wrapped in electric tape which can be delivered at good pace with overarm action, without the hazards of the hard-ball used in formal cricket.
As a league in and of itself, tape-ball cricket popped up during the sprawling overspill of Karachi’s development of the 1970’s, but became particularly popular in the 80’s by which time regular tournaments were being held everywhere from small stadiums to roadsides. According to Shahbaz, in tape-ball cricket, “you don’t have many choices of shots, except hitting sixes.”
Shahbaz started out playing hard-ball cricket at the prestigious Ludhiana cricket club in Lahore, an institution that has produced some of Pakistan’s biggest cricket stars like Waseem Akram, Saleem Malik and Saud Khan. Before shifting to its tape-ball version, which he considers a more entertaining, accessible game, Shahbaz also played the Veterans Trophy for seven years.
Leaning over a snooker table at a club in Lahore’s famous Moon Market last Wednesday, the day of the Pakistan-New Zealand World Cup clincher, Shahbaz explained why he stopped playing hard-ball cricket.
“Several reasons forced me to opt for tape-ball’s game,” he said as he hit the shot. “Expensive cricket kits, shortage of cricket grounds, little scope of hard-ball cricket at the local level and the destruction of the domestic cricket structure.”
Despite his good performance playing hard-ball cricket, Shahbaz said, he did not gain fame for his batting and it was not until he quit the pro category for its faster, cheaper taped-over twin that he was crowned king of Lahore’s mean streets.
“Tape-ball’s game gave me popularity and better opportunities,” he said.
Soon, he was playing tournaments at home and abroad.
“I played tournaments in Dubai and Oman, and I remember that I hit 28 sixes in an innings of 170 in Dubai,” he said. That equals 168 of the total runs made.
According to culture and sports writer Ahmer Naqvi, tape-ball cricket is so popular because it is a version of cricket that the poor and the young can afford to play especially in the cities where people have neither space nor time for orthodox matches.
“It’s both quick and can be played anywhere, and the players don’t need to spend on cleats, pads and helmets and gloves, expensive bats, whites or other kits,” he said.
There is a theory that tape-ball cricket was the precursor to the rise of the shorter T20 cricket game and Naqvi says in Pakistan, tape-ball cricket might have had an impact on creating different types of spinners suited to limited overs games.
“I think the clearest impact (of tape-ball cricket) was on developing an attitude to limited overs’ cricket that was ahead of its time,” Naqvi added. “The things that were common in tape-ball cricket in the 90’s are now common in T20s and ODI’s but sadly Pakistan didn’t quite benefit from that at the national level, largely due to the ban in IPL and terrorism-related stuff.”
In their teens, even Pakistan’s cricket legends Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis honed their fast-bowling skills with a tape-ball. International Pakistani test cricketer Adnan Akmal, the youngest of the famed Akmal brothers, told Arab News that he began his cricket career with a tape-ball, which requires an entirely different technique to formal hard-ball cricket, which relies more on strategy.
“You have to hit every ball out of the boundary in tape-ball, while in hard-ball cricket, one has to play according to the situation,” he said.
These days however, tape-ball maestro Shahbaz plays far less cricket and spends much more time focusing on his online business selling cricket kits on Facebook. Despite being the most famous street cricketer in the country with a huge fan following, he is paid Rs. 5000 ($30) per day in Lahore and close to Rs. 15,000 ($90) when he plays out of town in Karachi. Also, back problems means he needs a runner to play in professional games.
“Now I stand and hit only and all I need is timing and a strong wrist,” Shahbaz said.
Interestingly, however, Naqvi said that despite paying small, tape-ball cricket was potentially taking T20 talent away from formal cricket because domestic cricket at the national level didn’t pay as well and required a great deal of discipline.
“There is a class of players who only play in tape-ball events and make enough off that,” Naqvi said. “They obviously don’t make enough as a national team player, but significantly more than most domestic players would.”
But Shahbaz, a father of four, says he doesn’t want his children, especially his oldest, cricket-crazed sixteen year old son, to take up professional cricket at all.
“I want him to complete his studies and become a professional in some other profession,” the celebrated player said.
“Unless he (my son) has strong backing from influential circles,” Shahbaz said with a hint of sadness, “I know that cricket won’t give him anything.”
Then he turned to the small television behind him where Pakistani fast bowler Mohammad Amir had just taken a glorious Kiwi wicket.