Former England and current Lancashire coach Peter Moores has praised Pakistani pacer Junaid Khan as a “very skilful” bowler and a “very natural cricketer” who understands the game.
Inexperienced left arm pacer Junaid was a surprise choice by Lancashire, but made an instant impact with his impressive bowling performances for the Manchester-based County.
Recalling how Junaid came to his notice, Moores stated: “I hadn’t seen him bowl live, but I had seen some footage of his bowling. He was definitely on the radar especially with his impressive statistics and just before coming to Lancashire, he also got 4-12 in one of the ODIs against Ireland in Belfast.”
“All his statistics looked very good and of course we also had a strong recommendation from Wasim Akram, who is an ex-Lancashire player, and obviously one of the best left-armers there has ever been. So it was a very strong recommendation to have and that was very important for me and Mike Watkinson,” he added.
Moores said he expected to be talented Junaid, adding that the player lived up to that billing. “Junaid’s real strength is that he is very skilful. He bowls at a steady pace and is whippy. He also comes across as a very natural cricketer. He understands the game – he understands the field he should set tactically in accordance with what he will bowl,” PakPassion quoted Moores, as saying. “For one day cricket, he can reverse swing the ball both ways, and he’s got the perfect go-to ball in one day cricket which is the yorker. Because he’s not that tall, he uses that to his advantage as he gets that delivery underneath the batsman. In one day cricket, the Yorker is a fantastic weapon and he’s tactically very astute,” he added.
