Haris Rauf remarkable performances in BBL09 for the Melbourne Stars comes as no surprise to everyone involved at Western Suburbs Cricket Club.
As Western Suburbs Cricket Club first grade cap number 710 we’re all also delighted Haris has been selected in Pakistan 16-man squad to pay a T20 series against Bangladesh starting next week
Haris, we called him Harry, played for Wests during seasons 2017/18 and 2018/19. He made his first grade debuted on 17 November 2018 against Bankstown and was presented with his First Grade captain by Former Australian Test bowler and Western Suburbs Life member, David Gilbert.
The Haris Rauf story is fascinating.
Before joining Wests Haris went to the Lahore Qualanders (Pakistani Professional Cricket Franchise) trials along with 20,000 or so other eager young cricketers (there’s rumours of 150,000 trialling over 3 days).
As you could imagine ushering 20,000 young cricketers through a trial is not an easy task so the selection process the batsman were only able to face 3 balls and the bowlers could only bowl 3 balls.
Haris first ball was clocked at 92 miles per hour – he’s in.
What makes it even more fascinating is he’d only ever played “tape ball cricket” - a formal form of cricket in Pakistan where they tape a tennis ball to play on concrete. It’s why we see him in the BBL covering the ball on his approach to the wicket – he didn’t want the batsman back to know which side of the tennis ball was taped.
In 2017/2018 he toured with Lahore Qualanders and played a T20 tri series and stayed on in Sydney to play for Wests. We already had an overseas player in First Grade so he played three 2nd Grade players and terrorised the batsman taking 13 wickets at an average of 10
In 2018/2019 we planned for his return to spearhead our attack but due to circumstances he wasn’t able to make it to Sydney until Round 6 of the season.
So here we go, we have our own 150km fast bowler with new ball in hand. There’s a few more at Pratten Park than normal in anticipation as he came charging in.
Silence, jaws drop as Haris loses his footing at the crease and commando rolls down towards the batsman. He bowls 3.5 overs taking 1 for 10 before going off injured and you could see the tears in the eyes of the Wests administrators.
It took Haris a couple of weeks to get back to fitness and he bowled very quickly on a dull Pratten Park deck to lead us to victory over Penrith (eventual premiers) taking 3 for 56 off 15.
We played St George a week later in a 50 over game and he took 3 for 71 off his 10 overs as Kurtis Patterson scored 167 not out and went on his run of centuries to soon be selected to make his Test Debut for Australia.
Unfortunately Haris was then called home by his management to prepare for upcoming games for Lahore.
We all knew we’d see him playing at the highest level in the future as his raw speed was so evident.
Everyone at Western Suburbs is delighted Haris is bowling so well in the BBL and even more so with his selection for Pakistan.
Western Suburbs cap #710, congratulations Haris, go well
Wests Ashfield is a proud sponsor of Western Suburbs Cricket Club
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