Used to Watch Videos of Narine and Mendis on Youtube for Gripping the Ball: Mujeeb Zadran

When a normal 16-year-old is busy studying for his class X board exams, here is a 16-year-old kid who is all set to bag a whopping Rs 4 crores in the upcoming IPL. The kid I am talking about is the mystery spinner from Afghanistan Mujeeb Zadran. In the IPL Auction where the likes of Nathan Lyon and No 1 T20I bowler in the world Ish Sodhi remained unsold. Zadran was bought for a whopping Rs 4 crores by the Kings XI Punjab.

Most of the Afghanistan players had faced enough hardships but in the case of Mujeeb, he had a pretty comfortable ride when it came to the financial terms. He was raised by his mother’s family and a huge mansion was put had a big playground and a series of guesthouses where he started playing cricket. Afghanistan player Noor Zadran who is Mujeeb’s cousin has set up an academy in his name and that is where Mujeeb started his cricket career at the age of 12.

He then later trained at the Kost Province Academy and stated that interest of cricket began after watching Afghanistan take part in the 2010 ICC World Twenty20. He further stated that he learned the art of gripping the ball by watching videos of Sunil Narine and Ajanta Mendis.

“I started playing a lot of tape ball cricket. While bowling with that ball, I struggled to grip it, so I started flicking the ball with my fingers. Then, I watched some youtube videos of Sunil Narine and Ajantha Mendis and learned how they gripped the ball and flicked it with their middle finger.” He was quoted as saying by Midday.

However, Mujeeb had to practice it a lot before mastering it. “I started doing that and initially did not put power behind it. It would be like a flighted off-spinner, but slowly, and after a lot of practice, I eventually began to get some power behind my deliveries and was able to flick it harder”

Mujeeb has several variations up his sleeve and is expected to trouble a lot of batsmen in the upcoming IPL. It will be a great opportunity for him to rub shoulders with Ravichandran Ashwin, arguably the best off-spinner in the world at the moment.

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