From a trial with Lahore Qalandars that kickstarted his competitive career in 2017 to playing for Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League (BBL) this winter and then soon making his Pakistan T20I debut, Haris Rauf has had quite a journey already.
But having done so well in Australia and earned the national selectors' faith, the 26-year-old pacer wishes to now go back down under and play the T20 World Cup, where he believes his biggest challenge would come while facing the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma against arch-rivals India.
"Being a World Cup competition, the quality of opposition will be very tough as top players from each country will be playing in it so all batsmen will be difficult to bowl to," Rauf said on pakpassion.net. "But looking at the top T20I players in the world, to be the greatest challenge will come from the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma."
"To do well against such top-quality batsmen will do wonders for my confidence and to be honest, based on my experience in BBL, I should be able to do well in the World Cup if given the chance."
"It is my nature that I don’t let any batsman dominate me and that is how I did so well in BBL 09 even against such quality batsmen like Steve Smith, as I didn’t allow him to put any pressure on me at all."
Rauf picked up 20 wickets in only 10 innings at an average of 13.35 and economy rate of 7.06 in the BBL, which led to that successful debut against Bangladesh in January. "BBL 09 was a special experience for me as I had already been to Sydney before as part of the Lahore Qalandars’ Player Development Program so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect, and how to bowl on those pitches," he said.
"I knew that the players there were good at playing cut and pull shots, so I bowled wicket to wicket and that was a major reason for my success there. Obviously, speed plays a huge role in every fast-bowlers armoury and our coach Aaqib Javed has worked very hard on that aspect with me."
"To me, the number that counts for any fast-bowler is the average pace that one can bowl at, and currently my average ranges between 143-146KpH."
"However, since I have a few months at my disposal due to no cricket being played, I intend to work hard and improve my average pace and aim to regularly hit speeds of around 155 KpH in the future," he added.
(Inputs from pakpassion.net)
