Leadership is never easy, be it in the political arena or in the cricket field. Akbar Ali, the new sensation of Bangladesh cricket seems to enjoy this challenging role absolutely. According to him, 'belief' is the most desirable trait that a leader needs. He believes that the relation between a leader and his followers has to be based upon confidence. And the leader's visionary decisions will lead to that path.
"First of all, you need to have the courage to take bold and forward-looking decisions. You have to do such thing that will lead to a mutual point of belief between you and your teammates," Akbar states.
Akbar's belief is not superficial, neither the achievements he accomplished through it. When he was just a boy of merely 12, he used to play cricket in the streets of his neighbourhood. "Colourful were the days," he smiles while reminiscing about the beginning of his journey to the belief. Arman Hossain, his elder brother gave him a piece of advice one day, which changed his life forever.
"If you are to play cricket, play it properly, with a cricket ball!"
Since then, tennis ball ceased to exist in Akbar Ali's life and a seed of faith got implanted deep in his mind. The faith that practising with a cricket ball might make him a cricketer one day. And the seed that grew up, from the local academy to the captain of a World Cup winning team, has become a grown-up tree now. The tree has already got the ability to withstand storms. That heroic unbeaten knock at the final match of U-19 Cricket World Cup says enough. But Akbar wants to keep his feet on the ground. "That's just a single knock," he says implying his unwillingness to be praised too much.
Akbar Ali was meant to be a cricketer from the very beginning. He played all sorts of sports, but cricket was his favourite. He began from a local academy at Rangpur, his birthplace, and found himself playing for the U-14 team of Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishthan (BKSP) within a year. It was one of the major turning points of his life. When asked about it, he didn't hesitate to pour all the gratitude for BKSP.
"It's a great organisation or I'd like to say, a platform where we could execute ourselves. I developed myself there playing all those divisional cricket for BKSP team."
Akbar was constantly performing in age-based divisional cricket and his selection as the leader of the team was no surprise. He led his BKSP team at all the stages, from U-14, through to U-16 and U-18. Being under the selectors' radar for a significant period of time, he had always been a perfect choice for captaincy. Hence, he did not forget to thank the coach and the selectors. "Thanks to them for relying on me," he said out of gratitude.
Akbar's triumph at the global stage is no doubt a sensational story. However, the most difficult stage of his journey, he believes was being selected in U-19 team. Once selected, it was a matter of performing and cementing the position. Indeed he performed, in every occasion his team needed him to do. Before approaching the world cup, he led his team to a 4-1 series victory over New Zealand and thrashed Sri Lanka 4-0 in a 5-match bi-lateral ODI series. So, Bangladesh entered the World Cup being a favourite arguably.
World Cup is such a stage that creates huge pressure on any aspiring team, aiming to do something big. It seems, this pressure was not enough for Akbar as he had to go through worse. Just two days prior to a very important match against Pakistan, his elder sister Khadija Khatun died while giving birth to a twin. But Akbar was not informed about the unfortunate event because his family assumed it might hamper his performance. However, he came to know the news after the match against Pakistan got abandoned for rain. Akbar cried, cried hard, just as much as the sky at Potchefstroom cried that day. But he did not collapse mentally. Rather, he made a promise to himself to make his sister's dream come true, a dream of the deceased to see her brother lifting the trophy.
Akbar had two choices, either coming back with empty hands, or fighting even harder like the legends. He fought valiantly and reminded us of the legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, who made a century at Bristol with the wound of his father's demise being very much tender. He reminded us of Virat Kohli, the modern day batting sensation who kept aside the mourning of his father's death to play a match-saving innings for Delhi in Ranji Trophy.
When Akbar joined the chase, Bangladesh was tottering at 65-4, with the dangerman Bishnoi taking all four wickets. Before that innings, Akbar scored only 26 runs while Bishnoi had been the best bowler of the tournament. Ball was turning sharply, momentum was on India's side, Bishnoi was looking more and more perilous and India was gradually taking control of the match. But a wise man once said that it is not the load that breaks people down, but the way they carry it. Akbar knew how to carry it perfectly. He knew how to keep calm like his idols; like the hard-hitter batsman AB De Villiers, who also played an innings as slow as 43 runs from 297 balls in the time of need; like the world renowned all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, who remains as indifferent as nothing has happened, even at the time of crisis.
Akbar showed resistance and played an unbeaten innings of 43 from 77 balls to see his name written over the history books. His maturity, ice-cool mentality and finishing ability have forced people to find resemblance with the great Indian captain and finisher Mahendra Singh Dhoni. But Akbar is too humble to pay heed to such comparison.
"What he (Dhoni) did for years, I did that for once. It's unfair to compare me with the great man."
Whenever asked about leadership, Akbar talked so perfectly, yet so humbly. He refused to take the credits alone and praised his teammates for making the task easy. The coaching staff did their job with excellence as well. And then, it was up to Akbar to execute, to lead strategically. Remember the strategic gamble Dhoni made during the final match between India and Pakistan at the first ever T20 World Cup by bringing Joginder Sharma to bowl the last over? The gamble worked, and that was the moment a captain transformed into a leader.
"A leader is made a leader through the fearless decisions he makes at the moment of crisis."
Are the leaders born or made from events? It has been a bone of contention for long. Some believe that leaders are born perfect, while others believe that leadership grows from learning. And then there is Akbar Ali whose leadership quality blossomed through need of the moment. He learnt to be a cricketer, he learnt to bat and keep the wickets. But he didn't learn to be a leader. Situations brought the best out of him and made it clear that he could fight like a warrior, resist like a gladiator and show the path to victory like a leader.
The writer is an MSS student in Mass Communication at Dhaka University. He is an online content writer, and can be reached at [email protected]
