Goodbye Aloo

To be quite honest, initially I wasn't a very big fan of Inzamam-ul-Haq. He seemed to be a very lazy cricketer to my innocent eyes. Slow between the wickets, slow in the field & even slow while playing his shots. It was as if I was watching the game in slow motion. But as I grew up, I realised that his laziness was not a vice but something of a virtue. He seemed to have the time in the world to play his shots. He was never hurried into anything, never bullied into submission. And plus his laziness had a sort of elegance to it. I have to admit, Inzy had charm, the sort of charm the rest of the so-called "professional" cricketers lacked. He was like the common man's representative in the world of cricket. He was one of us, and yet while batting, he became one of them. Or even better than them.
And then who could forget the great fun we had watching Inzy giving press conferences. He was the one who made post match press conferences interesting with his style of talking & the stock phases that he consistently used ( " Inshallah, the boys played well today"). He might not have been the shrewdest captain and definitely was not the most media-savvy one around but he led by example - and his record speaks volumes about his dedication to the game.
But alas he's gone now and we shall miss him. Cricket really needs more characters like him and not the automatons that we see nowadays. And before I leave, I'll leave you with my favourite Inzy story, as told by Aamer Sohail.

"We were at a warm-up game in Zimbabwe once and the fast bowlers were on with the old ball. I was standing at slip with Inzi next to me. We crouched down as you do when the bowlers were coming in. Four or five balls later, I noticed Inzi was still crouching and surprised, I asked him if everything was ok. He replied, "I'm fine, just trying to sleep. The ball is old and reversing so there's hardly a chance there will be any edges to snap up."