Awais Ali Shah said he hoped he had made his father proud after bowling the UAE to a rare One-Day International victory.
The left-arm spinner took 5-33 as the national team beat Oman by four wickets at the ICC Academy in Dubai.
It was just their ninth win in 34 matches in Cricket World Cup League Two. So poor have they been, the UAE are guaranteed to finish last in the eight-team competition.
As such, they will have to play at the World Cup Qualifier Play-off in December, where their right to continue playing ODI cricket will be on the line.
Among the many reasons for the national team’s dire form has been a wildly fluctuating selection policy.
Awais, for example, is the latest in a long line of left-arm spinners to be tried. He debuted on tour in the United States earlier this month, and played the first game of the ongoing tri-series in Dubai, but had yet to pick up a wicket.
Those wickets arrived in a hurry against Oman, though. His five-wicket haul helped the home team limit their Gulf neighbours to 196.
They chased that with relative ease, with Aryansh Sharma top-scoring with 49, and Muhammad Waseem seeing them to the winning line with an easy-paced 43.
Awais’s haul earned him the player of the match award, and he capped off a fine outing by hitting the winnings runs, too.
His achievement was notable for the understated way in which he accepted the congratulations of his teammates.
“My family have always told me I have to be humble, I have to be grounded always, no matter what level of achievement I get,” Awais said.
“My family is always saying that, no matter at what level or at what stage you reach.
“My father watches every game, whether it's a live game or just the scores. Once I finish the game we call each other. So he also guides me, and says what I could have done and what I shouldn't have done.
“Even if the match is late in the night he still watches, and the next morning he gets up and goes to the office.
“I’m very close to him and I value my family. My father is very passionate about cricket.”
Awais initially thought about pursuing a career in cricket when he first played hardball cricket at school in Lahore in 2017.
The sport led him to the UAE when he was spotted at a trial in Peshawar that was organised by Karwan Cricket Club, who are one of the leading teams in UAE domestic cricket.
“We always had an eye on him,” said Azharuddin Qureshi, the manager for cricket operations for the UAE.
“He was doing really well and the time when we saw that his eligibility [to play international cricket for the UAE as a three-year resident] was coming very close, immediately we picked him up.”
Awais’s selection for the XI, then subsequent five-wicket haul, suggests he has moved to the front of a packed field when it comes to the left-arm spinner berth in the UAE side.
UAE cricket has always enjoyed an abundance of purveyors of that specific skill, with the likes of Aayan Khan, Haider Ali and Simranjeet Singh all fulfilling the role in the recent past.
“I just believe in hard work,” Awais said of the competition among left-armers.
“I want to do as much hard work I can and not look to see what is there on the left and the right side. I just want to go straight, and keep developing my own game.
“It is healthy competition but I am happy to have that competition among the other left-arm orthodox bowlers. God has always been good to me.
“My dad told me that if you choose a profession, you better be at the highest level of that profession.
“He said, ‘You play the game you want, but you give it your best. You reach the highest level, whatever it takes, any kind of hard work it takes, and you just have to keep playing the game of cricket.”
