RESTON, Va. — Danial Ahmed never once played cricket growing up in Pakistan. The 6-foot-1 spin bowler played professional basketball in Lahore in part because his father was a basketball player and he wanted to follow in his footsteps.
It wasn’t until he moved to the United States – the country where basketball was invented — that he first picked up a cricket ball, a sport immensely popular in Pakistan, but far from the mainstream in the U.S.
Within a year, he was selected to represent the U.S. in international cricket tournaments.
Unlike most boys in Pakistan – Ahmed didn’t want to play cricket. All he wanted to do was make his father, a national basketball player for Pakistan, proud. He worked out every day. He was a gym rat, spending hours getting his jump shot right.
But when he moved to Washington six years ago, he discovered that many of his new Asian friends played in something called the Washington Cricket League.
“You tend to follow your friends and that’s how I started playing cricket,” said Ahmed, who is 31 and owns a web designing firm in xx Virginia. There is a twinkle in his eyes as he reminisces about his journey in cricket. His English is impeccable.
Ahmed was a fierce competitor, and quickly climbed up the ranks. Playing in the Washington Cricket League, he consistently picked up wickets (got batsmen out). In 2012, the U.S. national team selectors took notice. He was asked to play in practice matches and he has been a permanent fixture on the U.S. team ever since.
With 42 teams, the Washington Cricket League, launched in 1974, conducts cricket matches in Virginia, Washington D.C., Baltimore and Maryland during spring, summer and fall weekends.
Ahmed plays for Washington Tigers, a team based in Reston. Talk about diversity. The teams have players from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jamaica, West Indies, England and Australia.
From the moment he picked up the ball, one of the selectors, Daood Ahmed, realized that Danial Ahmed was a prodigy. His technique, his passion to be a good athlete, coupled with his calmness made him a lethal bowler, Daood Ahmed said.
Danial, a hard worker a team player, is also one of his teammates’ favorite people. He is a player who would crack a joke and lighten the mood, even when things get intense, they said. Players swarmed around him to talk – his positivity, infectious.
“I am from a different country and he always ensures that I am smiling and included in the conversation,” Zenisse Fowler, a Jamaican batsman, said.
For Danial (no relation to Daood), the switch from basketball to cricket was simple. He did the same things – spent time in the gym, woke up early every morning to practice before work. The only real difference was he perfected his spin bowling on an indoor cricket field, not the hardwood.
He bowled more than 1,000 balls per day, throwing overarm with rapid rotations that caused the balls to fly straight before bouncing off the pitch in different directions.
It is difficult to find fulltime cricket coaches in the U.S., because of lack of funding. But Danial Ahmed sought help from former Indian all-rounder, Robin Singh. He sent Singh videos of him bowling during practice and Skyped with Singh regularly.
“Robin Singh is so hardworking and he never over-burdens players – if he thinks I can handle learning one technique per day, he will make sure that he doesn’t teach me three techniques,” Ahmed said.
This training, combined with weekend matches in the Washington Cricket League made Danial a spin bowler worth nurturing, said Daood Ahmed.
Danial is attending the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) training camp in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from July 27 to August 3. During his time there, his aim is to spend time with internationally acclaimed cricketers – from the West Indies, England and Australia – and improve his bowling skills. He is also a part of the one-off game played as part of CPL in August.
Apart from this, he is also training to be selected in the 15-member-squad to play in the 2016 Caribbean Premier League and the 2016 Pakistan Super League – both professional leagues. His goal: play league cricket.
“Five years is all I have – so I want to get picked by one of them and continue playing as long as I can,” Danial said.
Bowling on Astro Turf – artificial cement turf rolled down with grass – is one of the greatest challenges cricketers face in the U.S. And Danial is no stranger to this predicament. Traditional soil pitches are expensive to construct and maintain. That changes the way bowlers practice and play. According to Danial, once you know how to spin the ball on Astro Turf, it is much easier to bowl in a soil pitch.
The reason: soil pitches help spin balls a lot easier than Astro Turfs (it is like clay court versus hard court in tennis). This has made him a tougher bowler, Danial said.
According to Fowler, “Dany is the kind of guy you call a textbook spin bowler – he follows the rules and bowls proper line and length and keeps doing it over and over again.”
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