Muhammad Waseem hits big, and dreams bigger

Who is the first player to have hit 100 sixes in a calendar year in international cricket?'

If you were asked this in a pub quiz, what would your answer be? One of Rohit Sharma, Chris Gayle or Suryakumar Yadav, possibly?

The holder of the record is UAE captain Muhammad Waseem. At the end of 2023 he had 101 sixes in international cricket that year - 47 in ODIs and 54 in T20Is. To date he remains the only player to have done so in a calendar year.

Growing up in Pakistan, Waseem had a natural ability to clear the ropes at will, even when he wasn't really looking to. "My aim right from the start has been to time the ball," he says.

"Even when I was younger, I used to notice that if I was lofting the ball over the fielder's head in the circle, my timing would be such that it would invariably go for six. When I am clearing the boundary, I rely on my timing rather than brute force."

Waseem's training sessions do involve range-hitting at times, but he doesn't follow a specific routine to consistently hit sixes. He does credit playing tape-ball cricket as a youngster for his free-flowing ability to hit big. Tape-ball cricket is played with a tennis ball wrapped in electrical tape to give it more weight; this sort of ball is used extensively in street cricket in Pakistan.

"For someone who has played tape-ball cricket, hitting sixes becomes slightly easier because the flow of their bat is much cleaner," Waseem explains. "The last match I played in Pakistan was a tape-ball tournament. All the players who have played tape-ball cricket, you see their power-hitting will be really clean. Technically sound players, when they clear the rope, the ball doesn't [always] go deep into the crowd. But tape-ball cricketers can send the ball miles if they connect cleanly."

Waseem calls the UAE his home now, but like for most players from the subcontinent, his cricket journey started on the streets of Multan with friends. It was only when he won a player-of-the-tournament award in a school competition that he decided to take up the sport seriously.

"There was a club in my district. They said, 'You are playing over there, why don't you play with us?' I started playing for them, and slowly realised I am good at this, and that I should do this for a living," he says.

He played cricket at district level in Pakistan but felt there wasn't much room for him to progress and decided to look elsewhere. His first opportunity came through a friend. The cricket season in the UAE is during the holy month of Ramadan and Waseem was invited to play for his friend's club in one such tournament in 2016, did well, and soon decided to make a permanent move.

He played a lot of club cricket in the UAE after that, and was also part of the winning 2019 Maratha Arabians squad in the Abu Dhabi T10, though he did not get a game. His first big break came in the same tournament in 2021, when he was with Northern Warriors. In just his second game, he smoked a 34-ball 76, with seven fours and six sixes. Two days later he topped that knock by smashing an unbeaten 56 off 13 against Pune Devils. Seven balls were carted for sixes, three went for four, and 35 of those runs came in one over, off left-arm spinner Monir Hossain.

Waseem also played a crucial hand in the final to give Warriors the title. But he was so nearly not part of the tournament at all.

"It is a funny story. There was a tournament going on at the time when the T10 draft was on, and almost all of us who were part of the draft were there. We were playing a match and could hear someone shouting whenever a player was picked.

"Initially I was not picked by any team. There was some error in my name. A different Muhammad Waseem was shown on the screen, who had a different age and everything else.

"After the draft, Robin Sir [Robin Singh, Warriors head coach] called me up and I told him that I had registered [but there was a snafu at the auction]. He immediately called up our team analyst. They had one pick remaining and added me into the squad."

Waseem qualified to play for the UAE in April 2021 after completing the ICC's three-year residency requirement, and soon made his international debut, against Namibia. In his fourth T20I, against Ireland, Waseem smashed 107 off just 62 balls - only the second T20I century ever for a UAE batter.

Was it a big change, moving from club cricket to international cricket? Surely, there were nerves?

"Not really," says Waseem. "When I was debuting for the UAE team, I had already played with most of the players in domestic cricket for at least one or two years. There was no pressure as such. It was a seamless transition."

Barely four months later, he became the first UAE batter to record two T20I centuries, and later that year he was one of four domestic players signed by MI Emirates for the inaugural ILT20. Waseem finished as the fourth highest run-getter that first season and bagged the blue belt, an award given to the most outstanding UAE player in the competition. In 2024, he won the blue belt again as MIE claimed their maiden title under Nicholas Pooran.

Waseem says he now gets calls from franchises all over the world, something he couldn't have imagined a few years back. He played one game for Chattogram Challengers in the BPL this year. He has also been approached by Islamabad United and Multan Sultans in the PSL, and Trinbago Knight Riders in the CPL, but has not been able to go because of national commitments.

"It [ILT20] has helped me expand my range by a great deal. Even if I say that I don't have much time, they [other leagues] ask me to come over for one or two games," he says. "There has been a huge change from last year to now. The ILT20 provides such a great opportunity for UAE players. It is such a big league, all the big-name players from across the world come here."

Waseem is also effusive in his praise of the MI franchise. "Over the last four to five years, I have played a lot of cricket in leagues in various countries, but have never seen such a professional franchise. The freedom the players get is unparalleled," he says. "The atmosphere is good. The coach, the captain, they all treat you as a friend. Some of the West Indian players naturally keep the atmosphere light and easy."

Another pivotal change in Waseem's UAE journey came when he was handed the captaincy of the ODI side in February 2023. He took over the reins from CP Rizwan at a turbulent time last year, with five games remaining in the Cricket World Cup League 2.

Rizwan was removed barely seven months after assuming full-time captaincy of both the T20I and ODI sides. Under him, UAE lost five of eight ODIs and eight of 11 T20Is and were languishing in sixth place on the league's table out of seven.

Waseem organised a team dinner the day after he was appointed captain, to make sure everyone was on board. "I just told them [the team], 'What's happened has happened.' I just tried to motivate everyone and asked them to right their wrongs. After that, I felt the boys started to get better, and here we are," he says.

Six months later he was named UAE T20I captain. In his first series in charge, UAE beat New Zealand in a T20I in Dubai, and came ever so close to a series win. It was the first time in 39 matches that New Zealand had lost to a non-Test-playing nation across formats.

"That was one of the proudest moments in my career, as a player, as a team," Waseem recalls. "There was also a tinge of regret, because there was a time when we were about to win the series. We almost managed a series win against Afghanistan also. We are happy that we are doing well against the good teams."

Waseem says that he did not have a mentor when he came to the UAE, just a few friends who taught him a few things about cricket. But the one person he does give massive credit to after making his UAE debut is Robin Singh. The former India cricketer was UAE's director of cricket between 2020 and 2023 and has helped shape Waseem's career in a big way.

"He was the one who got me into that T10 tournament. After that he was also the UAE coach, and then I made my debut under him. All the technical changes I have made in cricket are down to him.

"The one major change was that even in that T10 tournament [in 2021], I used to play a lot of cross-batted shots. I used to try and whack every ball. But after that, I practised with him. Now I get fours and sixes, but I don't go searching for them, and I tend to collect more boundaries. When someone goes searching for those sixes, the chances of him mishitting one are much higher. Now I just focus on my shape, balance and try to use my timing to hit the ball. That is one big difference.

"I have learned a lot from him. Sometimes, even when he is not around and I am stuck with something, I send him a clip and ask him where I am going wrong. He either tells me or if he is here, he keeps a practice session."

It has not all been rosy for Waseem the captain. UAE failed to qualify for three World Cups last year - T20, ODI, and the U19 World Cup. Not qualifying for the 2024 T20 World Cup still haunts Waseem: UAE had an unbeaten run in the group stage of the qualifiers, only to lose to Nepal in the semi-final.

"[You know how people ask] if you are allowed to do one thing over in your life, what would that be? I really want that semi-final to happen again," Waseem says. "That is one regret I have."

UAE haven't started 2024 on a high either. They failed to win a single game in the Cricket World Cup League 2 tri-series against Scotland and Canada, and then went down 2-1 to Scotland in a T20I series last month. But with new coach Lalchand Rajput coming in, Waseem is hopeful as UAE get ready to play the Asia Cup qualifiers in the second week of April.

"The next goal for us is the Asia Cup," he says. "When someone new is appointed, I have seen them showing a lot of aggression, but that is not the case with Rajput. He is handling everyone really well. I have a feeling we are taking the right step with him at the helm."

What about on a personal level?

"I want to play in all the big leagues," he says. "My target is three leagues: IPL, PSL and CPL. But the priority is to play for the country."