By The decision has been made by our head coach that not a single Australian player’s name will be mentioned in our dressing room as we prepare for the match.”
According to Aqib Illyas, this directive has been issued by the team’s head coach, former Sri Lankan captain Duleep Mendis. This measure aims to prevent his players from feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of facing the high-profile Australian team, marking the first meeting between the two countries at any level.
Listening to Illyas, the Oman captain, at the Kensington Oval on Tuesday (June 4), one would think the order came directly from him. He’s certainly not stepping back in the face of the biggest challenge in his country’s cricketing history.
It was one of the more spirited press conferences from the captain of an Associate nation. While Illyas did not try to raise unreasonable expectations for his team, there was a genuine lack of reverence for his illustrious opponents.
He’s not the first captain of a non-Test playing nation to invoke the ‘they have more to lose than us’ narrative. However, there was a charming ingenuity in the way the Sialkot-born star batter for Oman did it. There was a frank disregard for the norms of playing it cool with some of the statements he made, downplaying the significance of the occasion. However, it was clear he meant every word about not letting the aura of Australia overshadow his team’s motivation to compete.
Illyas has faced real-life adversity by backing himself fully. Playing against the likes of Pat Cummins, David Warner, and Mitchell Marsh doesn’t even register as the biggest challenge he’s had to overcome. He was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his left ankle only a few years ago. In that moment, he feared that both his cricket career and life might be over. Thankfully, the tumor was found to be benign, but he still needed surgery and underwent an 18-month-long rehab, spent entirely on crutches. And here he is, less than two years later, captaining his national team in a World Cup.
When asked about facing the Australian team, Illyas didn’t hold back his thoughts on how he wanted his players to approach the contest.
“Once you step onto the field, there are no big names, no one is bigger than you on the field. It’s just another game for us. We don’t think we are going to do anything extraordinary. It’s just a team on the same level as us. They have qualified, we have qualified, it doesn’t make much difference. We respect them, of course,” he said.
While their names will not be mentioned or discussed in the dressing room, Illyas talked about speaking to his players about viewing the prospect of facing a Mitchell Starc as a chance to shine on the world stage rather than a daunting obstacle to their success.
Illyas’s most telling line about his mindset came when he spoke about his own mindset as captain when facing this Australian team. If he were a captain from any of the Test nations, headlines like ‘Shots fired as opposition captain takes a dig at Australian squad’ would have been inevitable. Illyas expressed his acknowledgment that their spin-heavy attack could pose a real threat to the Aussies if the pitch is similar to the one they lost to Namibia on. He also gave his take on the Australian batting line-up, especially in terms of who’s not around.
“You see how the ball was turning in the last match. The ball was staying low. With the Australian team, they used to have a few players with good techniques in the past like Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne. But I don’t think they have many now. They look to hit big. They only try to go for sixes. But every day is not the same day, and if we get the same wicket (as the one against Namibia) maybe it could be a problem for them,” he said.
“Just like how difficult it was for the West Indies against PNG. They struggled to chase 130-odd despite having some of the biggest hitters in the side. So, on a slower track with good quality spinners, the only thing we need to do is play with a big heart and put the ball in the right areas, because the ball doesn’t know how big (he means in terms of status and reputation) the batter is. If it turns a bit or stays low, the batter is in trouble.”
Illyas also saved his best memorable line for the end. Asked if, once the match was over, the ban on using Australian players’ names in the Oman dressing room would be lifted, and the players be keen to interact with the likes of Starc and Maxwell, the captain had this to say, sporting a smirk that turned into a smile.
“It depends on how the game goes. It might happen that they might be taking our names. We respect them a lot as a team. But before the game, it’s tactical to not get overawed by them. After the game, of course, there are great players in their side, and we can learn a lot from them. But maybe even they might be able to learn something from us.”
Regardless of the outcome in Barbados on Wednesday night, Illyas had already won us over.
