Mohammad Irfan will be playing for Moddershall Cricket Club

Mohammad Irfan playing for Moddesrshall cricket club

by Abdul Habib
30th March 2010

Cricistan.com's own giant left arm bowler will be coming to England from mid-April to play in the Premier Division of the North Staffordshire and South Cheshire League. Additionally Ijaz Ahmed Jr will be playing for Modderhall's A side this season

Irfan who only debuted in first class cricket last season, has had a very successful first season playing for KRL in the Pakistan domestic. He took 43 wickets in the 10 first class games he played. He's also represented Pakistan's National Cricket Academy against Afghanistan and Pakistan A, impressing a lot of people along the way.

Currently Irfan is training with the Pakistan cricket team at a national camp in Lahore where he's caught the eye of national coach Waqar Younis. Waqar who was impressed with Irfan's control, has been advising Irfan on the correct line and lengths to bowl for his height.

Moddershall Cricket Club was founded in 1922 and has previously been home to former Pakistan A legspinner Imran Tahir. Tahir claimed 80 wickets for Moddershall en route to their 2008 North Staffordshire and South Cheshire League Premier Division title success. Tahir now plays for the Titans in South Africa and is now hoping to play for the South African national team.

Moddershall is also the club that Rangana Herath was playing for when Sri Lanka called him up to face Pakistan last year. Herath ended up taking 15 wickets in 3 games.

Hopefully Irfan can pick up some of that Moddershall magic and get noticed this coming season.

Insha Allah, it would be awesome if that happened. What a rags to riches type story that would be.

However more realistically I think we're about 6 months too early on that score, that's if it ever happens.

When I think back to the day I was on the phone to Aqib Javed trying to convince him to take a look at a 7 foot giant that he didnt believe even existed and then I think to where Irfan is today, it's just unbelievable what he's ALREADY achieved.

I was talking to Andy from Moddershall CC earlier today and they're really excited to have Irfan at their club. I sent Andy the link to Irfan's bowling video and he was impressed with Irfan's sheer size and menace.

Andy clearly has more confidence in Irfan than the PCB because he was saying that he was a little worried that Irfan might get called up mid-season to play for Pakistan. The same thing happened to Moddershall last season when Herath got called up to Sri Lanka and promptly destroyed Pakistan. So blame Andy and Moddershall for Pakistan's lost test series in Sri Lanka last year!!

@MT

I never even got to see Irfan bowling till Kashif shot that video of him in the nets and none of us had seen him bowling in a match situation until Cricistan released that exclusive video of Irfan demolishing the Karachi Whites.

I honestly think we have come a long way since then too. Yes, we heard about him but never did we really think we were going to get somewhere with it. We just wanted to give our best. One must never forget Aaqib Javed role in all this. How many people in PCB would take our word and decide to give two youngsters a chance? Then the likes of Sohail joined in and worked really hard with Irfan.

I mean it seems like yesterday we were thinking how Irfan is going to travel to lahore whom will he stay with and how is he going to eat etc. Today he is playing along the national cricketers and going to UK. Well done boy!

I've been speaking to Andy about Irfan for around 3 months now, Irfan told me late last year that he'd been signed by Moddershall CC. Both Irfan and the club thought it was best to keep it quiet until his work permit had been approved, it was approved last week.

Moddershall have arranged for Irfan to sit the ECB Level 2 coaching course and as a result Irfan has been trying to learn English around his busy schedule. If Irfan passes the coaching course then he'll be holding coaching classes for local kids every week.

All in all it looks like a great deal for him and Moddershall are really excited about having the near 7 footer in their ranks. They were hoping for him to be available for games on the 17th and 18th of April but as Cricistan exclusively reported Irfan has been called up to the Pakistan camp which ends on the 19th.