"I'm not scared anymore" – The story of Lodhran's unwitting trailblazer

NICK FRIEND: Before Shoaib Bilal walked out to make his Multan debut in 2018, Lodhran - a poor, underrepresented district - had never produced a first-class cricketer. Locals had become conditioned to the belief that it simply was not a career option

In all likelihood, you won’t have heard of Shoaib Bilal. By his humble expression of flattered bemusement even at being asked for a chat, he will not blame you for that.

As it stands, his List A career extends to just a single abrupt spell fifteen months ago. His three appearances in the Quaid-e-Azam One Day Cup spanned just a fortnight.

That is all. But each of those games represented something far greater. Those two weeks were the culmination of a pipedream he was warned against pursuing. Cricket, he was repeatedly told, was not an option – not for someone like him, anyway.

Until Bilal took to the field for the first time in a Multan shirt, nobody born in Lodhran – an underrepresented rural district in South Punjab four hours from Lahore – had ever played a game at the top level of Pakistan’s domestic system.

We are sitting alongside one another on a bench that looks out onto the playing area at the Tareen Cricket Academy. Bilal is intelligent and thoughtful, responsible and widely respected by his peers. He understands English but prefers here to speak in the local Saraiki language, with an interpreter by his side.

“My parents would mock me,” he recalls. “They were saying: ‘Why are you timewasters still going around with this bat? Nothing is going to happen.’

“But when I went and played my first first-class game, I showed my mum the video and the cheques came. Then they hugged me.

“Suddenly, the landscape changed just like that and I became the leading person in the house and the dependence was on me. And now, when I’m sitting at home, my mum is like: ‘Why are you sitting at home? Go and play cricket. Earn!’”

This is the dilemma at play in a place like Lodhran, one of the poorest in the country, with few employment prospects beyond the grind of agriculture. Until Bilal, the people of the district had never experienced any evidence that cricket might exist as a viable career option. There was a perception that if you were playing cricket, you were not helping out as a breadwinner. You were chasing an unreachable dream, an unwarranted distraction from the central issue of supporting the family.

There was – and is – an onus, therefore, on making ends meet. Certainly in this rural corner of the country, where opportunities have been bleak in number, it is a conundrum that has often been at the cause of strained household relationships.

^{Bilal (left) alongside batting performance specialist Gio Colussi}

“The truth is that, in this city, parents bring their kid into this world so that he or she can earn money for them,” Bilal reflects.

“When they bring the child into the world, they have already decided that this child is going to do this and earn money. And then, the kid is growing up, thinking: ‘I don’t want to do this, I want to do that.’

“But what then happens is that the kid doesn’t get to do what he wants, and nor does he do what the parents want him to do. So, you end up finding a middle ground or a balancing act and that’s not a great place to be in – mentally or physically.”

That, of course, has begun to change with the project set up by Ali Khan Tareen, the co-owner of Pakistan Super League franchise Multan Sultans. The members of the academy are viewed as professional cricketers and a future in cricket is no longer a farfetched ambition. Bilal, for one, has learnt to understand that options exist to make a living from the game.

He has already been made an assistant coach at the academy and further plans are in place to continue his progression. When Jonty Rhodes visited late in 2019 as one of several foreign coaches who have led specialist camps for the youngsters, he praised his ability as a responsible leader in the group.

“Everybody knows at what level they can play cricket,” he says. “I know that I can play at a high level, but I also now know that there are so many related fields in cricket that I can get into. I could take up coaching or umpiring or I could get into scoring. I’m at peace.”

It is a cliché, perhaps, but as we sit and talk, looking back on an unlikely journey from then to now, Bilal is staring out onto his field of dreams; Tareen’s academy is the patch of land that nudged the door ajar for what has followed.

“This place is heaven for us,” he smiles. It is not an ordinary grin, but one full of emotion. There is a glint in his eye that, for as long as he speaks, is on the verge of teetering into a stream of tears.

“If the academy and this platform that we have had not come, then forget about me and forget about anyone in the next ten years from Lodhran playing first-class cricket,” he adds.

^{The sun sets over the Tareen Cricket Academy}

“Most importantly, everything is free – there is nothing to stop us from taking part and using this. We do have some very good young high-potential players, who have the potential to go really far in cricket.

“The idea of this academy not existing is a very scary thought. I had left my studies and if I hadn’t become a cricketer then what would have happened?

“Everybody has this fear that they’ll have to put a cart up and sell vegetables or something like that. I didn’t do my studies. I didn’t learn any craftsmanship-type skills. But now, I’m experiencing this. I’m not that scared anymore.”

It is an uplifting story, but a difficult tale to tell. Before Tareen built this venue, there was just a single cricket facility in the region – a government-run ground with few openings available to desperate youngsters like Bilal.

“It’s not like they’re not born here or that there’s something in the DNA of the people of Lodhran that’s just not producing cricketers. It was just that they weren’t given the opportunity to practise and play,” explains Asser Malik, a player agent and, alongside Tareen, a driving force behind the initiative. He heads up the Last Man Stands franchise in Pakistan, which has brought some formalised competition to the ground.

“Two seasons into the project, Shoaib went to a random regional trial – we didn’t even know of it – and got selected. The first ever guy from here to play first-class cricket. He became a legend in his own way.”

Like many others born elsewhere, Malik had never heard of Lodhran in his youth. He was a city boy, born and bred in Lahore. Before visiting for the first time, he had no idea in his mind of what rural Pakistan looked like.

“The lifestyle in Lodhran is different to the city areas,” Malik adds. “Let’s suppose this academy didn’t exist? Would they be doing a full-time job? Maybe not. The would be at their own house, growing their crops and looking after their stuff.

“That time has been replaced by them trying to look at a career in cricket. You have to understand that there are fewer opportunities out here; this is a new avenue that has opened up. That’s how I look at it.

“The first time I came here, I was in the car and I said: ‘Hey listen, stop at a superstore so I can buy a toothbrush.’ They were like: ‘Okay, tell us when you find one.’

“We drove for an hour and a half – I didn’t find one. But now, obviously I have a great connection with the place and with the people. I enjoy my time here a lot. The people look at the small things in life and they are pretty happy with it.”

^{Bilal became the first player from Lodhran to play first-class cricket when he made his Multan debut in 2018}

Bilal has grown with the academy, an initiative set up with a straightforward goal in mind: to help the people of the district make something of themselves and, in so doing, to strengthen the national player pool.

Before this facility existed, he would travel to a nearby ground and sit on a wall, watching patiently but without reward, while his elders would play on the concrete wicket. Occasionally, he would fetch balls from the swathes of crops that sat beyond the fence.

When he was finally given his chance, he took it. Bilal can recall every game from a rise that began eight years ago. He lists his run-tallies from each season, embellished with his top scores. There was a 17-ball half century, a career-best 134 and several other fifties; the attention to detail is a reminder of how much this all means.

He could only afford his first bat after recouping enough rupees from selling plastic and scrap materials.

That thought brings about a moment of silence and reflection as he looks around the academy that has become his life. The difference is chalk and cheese.

For several seconds, his eyes scale the circumference of this remarkable operation: four purpose-built nets, a square and a shed full of equipment. Former England spin bowling coach David Parsons is overseeing the academy’s young spinners for the week, while South African batting performance specialist Gio Colussi is working with the young batsmen. In recent months, several other coaches have led similar camps.

"This place is like heaven for us" - Cricket's oasis in the Pakistan wilderness

A gazebo set up beyond the boundary edge houses a physio, while an unpretentious sign hangs over the entrance to the ground. The contrast with all else is stark: beyond the fencing, fields of sugarcane, cotton and mango trees stretch for miles.

The link to the Sultans franchise has also provided a tangible pathway to the PSL, while Bilal himself is proof of a legitimate route to first-class cricket and, more pertinently, a means of earning a living.

It feels as though he is beginning to understand his own significance. After all, his achievements have shown what can be accomplished by the youngsters of Lodhran.

The decision to offer him a coaching role was, as much as anything, a move borne out of the esteem in which he is held by his peers.

“Initially I never thought I would be a cricketer,” he confesses, his voice beginning to wobble.

“My dad didn’t want me to be a cricketer. He would tell me to go to school, so I would go to school.

“I had this thing where I knew in my mind that I wanted to play cricket and I wanted to play cricket in a proper way. But I never thought this could happen. But I do think that the amount of hard work that I have put in has resulted in these things happening. It is kind of like it was meant for me.

“I’m trying and I’m trying hard. I’m just hopeful that things keep working out.”

^{Images: Tareen Cricket Academy}