Lahore Qalandars’ Chief Operating Officer (COO), Sameen Rana, sees similarities between Haris Rauf and Umran Malik’s journeys to franchise cricket and said that he is happy that his franchise has not just impressed Pakistan cricket but also Indian cricket.
While speaking on paktv.com, Rana said, “I am very happy that Lahore Qalandars have not just impressed Pakistan cricket but also Indian cricket. If you look at Umran Malik’s story, you will see that it has been a Haris Rauf-inspired story.”
Lahore Qalandars has picked Haris Rauf without any first-class experience back in 2018 while Umran Malik was called up as a net bowler for India’s T20 World Cup campaign after the last season of the Indian Premier League.
Sameen further said that both the pacers have a lot of similarities and maybe, India has followed the story that a pacer can start his career in white-ball cricket in Pakistan, the same can be done in India.
“Maybe they had followed Haris’ story and must have thought if it can happen in Pakistan, then why not in India. Because there are a lot of similarities. Both started from white-ball cricket, are from Jammu and Kashmir, no background in first-class cricket.”
While reminding the past, Rana said that they were criticized after picking Haris without any experience but he hopes that the AJK pacer and IPL franchise will not face such criticism.
“I have never seen that happen in IPL before. And it happened until Haris, who became a success and gave others a new pathway. I hope it doesn’t happen to Umran, but we were criticized a lot when Haris was in our team that we killed domestic cricket and affected the sport,” he said.
While appreciating Pakistan’s pacer, Rana said that Haris is not only the hero of Lahore Qalandars but when he joined Yorkshire in County cricket they called him a ‘Pakistani superstar’.
“But today, he is Pakistan’s pride. When he goes abroad and plays for teams like Yorkshire, they call him a ‘Pakistani superstar’. So we have given cricketers a new pathway and I want to take credit for that,” he concluded.
