Weekly Talent Spotlight #5: Hamza Tahir
Related to one of the former pillars of Scottish cricket, Majid Haq, can Hamza Tahir succeed his older cousin?
DISCLAIMER: THIS WEEKLY TALENT SPOTLIGHT EDITION IS FOR THE WEEK OF 29TH OCTOBER-6TH NOVEMBER.
When one thinks about the current Scottish team, the usual suspects to pop out in their mind are George Munsey, Kyle Coetzer, Calum MacLeod, and Safyaan Sharif.
Then comes Hamza Tahir, an orthodox bowler who may also join this quartet to make it a quintet.
Call to Adventure
Hamza Tahir played for the same club as his older cousin Majid, Ferguslie, a club based in their hometown Paisley from 2011 (age 16) to 2018 (age 23), who play in the Western Premier Division (a Domestic Regional League), Scottish Cup and Cricket Scotland League, and was regularly amongst the leading wicket takers.
In the 2017 season, he played for Poloc, which is based in Glasgow.
The same season, he made his debut for Western Warriors in the Scotland T20 Blitz, where he was the seventh-highest wicket-taker, taking 4 wickets at an average of 7.25 with an economy rate of 4.24 across two matches.
Owing to his consistent performances in taking wickets at both club and domestic level, Hamza Tahir was selected for Pakistan’s tour of Scotland in June 2018, which was composed of 2 T20Is, and made his debut in the first T20I.
Rude Awakening
The transition from club and domestic cricket to the international level initially proved to be quite stark for the then 22 year old, going for figures of 0/57 and 1/43 (maiden T20I wicket of Paul Stirling) in his first 2 T20Is against Pakistan and Ireland respectively.
However, the famous proverb “the third time’s the charm” proved to be accurate for Hamza, scalping figures of 3/26 in his allotted quota against Netherlands during the 2018 Netherlands Tri-Series to help Scotland defend 221, winning the match by 115 runs.
ODI Golden Ticket
Hamza made his ODI debut a bit over a year later (August 2019), against Papua New Guinea and initiated a dream start to his career in this format.
His ODI debut came in the first round of the 2019-2023 ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 in the third ODI of the Scotland Tri-Series.
Hamza took figures of 4/37 in his 10 overs, with his maiden scalp being PNG captain Assad Vala, followed by Lega Siaka, Chad Soper and Norman Vanua to restrict them to 205 in 50 overs.
In Scotland’s next fixture against Oman, Hamza scalped his maiden ODI fifer, scalping Jatinder Singh, Aamir Kaleem, Aqib Ilyas, Sandeep Goud and Suraj Kumar respectively to help Scotland defend 223, as Oman were bundled out for 138.
T20 World Cup Qualifiers
In the 2019-2020 T20 World Cup Qualifiers, Hamza took 7 wickets at an average of 17.28 with an economy rate of 6.36 across 5 matches, with best figures of 3/24 against PNG, dismissing Tony Ura, Sese Bau, and Riley Hekure, and helped successfully defend 146.
Harmonic ODI Bagpipes
The tune of the iconic Scottish instrument continues to be harmonic for Hamza since his debut, as in the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup League 2, he is the currently leading wicket-taker for Scotland and overall sixth with 17 wickets at an average of 20.47 with an economy rate of 4.07 across 10 matches.
In the Oman Tri-Nation Series in September 2021, Hamza scalped a near-replication figures against the same opposition whom he debuted against, Papua New Guinea, taking figures of 3/36 in 10 overs. Hamza’s wickets included the PNG captain for the second time, Bau and Jason Kila.
Technical Breakdown of Hamza Tahir
Hamza Tahir’s runup and bowling action are very reminiscent of Sri Lanka’s Lasith Embuldeniya.
Both bowlers essentially just walk up to the crease, go side-on (with Hamza going a lot more side-on compared to Embuldeniya) to help create an optimal amount of spin as well as an angle and deliver the ball; a very loopy action.
Hamza has a low-arm action and bowls flattish (generally in the 90kph range), while Embuldeniya has a high-arm action and bowls a bit slower.
This is Hamza’s stock ball grip, a split fingeresque grip with his index finger overlapping the seam, again to create an optimal amount of spin.
This is Hamza’s arm ball grip, with his index finger going down the seam.
This is Hamza’s cutter grip, with his wrist in front of the ball so it cuts.
Hamza generally bowls in the middle overs, with his primary responsibility being to
not let batsmen score off him at a quick rate and settle in, as players of spin are typically deployed in this phase.
Why was Hamza selected for Weekly Talent Spotlight?
Although Hamza Tahir’s only game time in the T20 World Cup came in the dead rubber against Pakistan, he proved to be challenging to play on a slow and skiddy surface in Sharjah, where the ball has been staying low in recent times.
His final figures were 1/24 in his four overs, which included the prized wicket of in-form wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan, tossing the ball to the full-length region and wide, which drew Rizwan to the offside region and tried to make room for himself to play the cut shot, only to get an under-edge carried to the keeper Matthew Cross.
Mark Watt-Hamza Tahir are dubbed the “spin twins” due to their same bowling style and are about the same age (with Hamza being about a year older). However, both have completely different bowling roles, with Watt being the attack leader and Hamza the middle overs specialist.
While Watt has already shown his capabilities to the global cricketing community, having conceded under an economy rate of 6 in all but one match (final fixture against Pakistan) and successfully bowling at the death as a spinner at regular intervals, Hamza has also shown he has the talent to live up to the “spin twin” duo tag, and help cultivate the duo’s credo in world cricket and potentially become a lethal duo and take wickets in tandem, and more importantly became a household name like Imran Tahir (get it?) and his idols Rangana Herath and Daniel Vettori.
The lack of opportunities associate nations typically have are well documented, and with associate players like Hamza coming through the ranks, it is more than the appropriate time to call for action, so deserving players like Hamza do not end up as a victim of the tip of the tongue phenomenon.
That said, as the proverb goes, “when there is a will, there is a way.”