Potential wise, how good can he become?
Peak Junaid Khan of 2011-2013
Where do you see him in few years time? Can he get better?
This depends on his professional intelligence and work ethics, because he has a lot to work on to improve his game.
What does he need to work on?
This is the most interesting part of your thread and I would like to address it in detail.
1. Usman Khan Shinwari should understand that his biggest competitor in last many years hasn’t been any fast bowler but his own fitness. Majid Ali for a short time really excited me and was a better product than all left arm pacers in Pakistan but don’t know what went wrong with him.
Usman’s biggest issue is his fitness. He gets unfit too often and it’s not because he doesn’t give 100 % to his training but because of his bowling action and it’s technical sides.
Usman has modelled his action on Umar Gul. As a left armer that’s not a good role model in terms of trying to copy a right arm pacer but this can’t be changed now.
He is a strong candidate for :
1. Considerably Sore and stiff back after each Odi where he bowls 10 overs.
2. Side strains.
Why is that ?
In my view his bowling action is not economical and his body takes extra toll.
His follow through by no means is smooth and he finds it quite difficult to get himself balanced after delivering the ball.
He exerts lots of effort on each ball he bowls, probably what 150 plus kph bowlers exert but mostly operates in high 130’s or low 140’s because his action is not biomechanically efficient.
What are the issues ?
The biggest issue is his posture right before delivering the ball.
Usman fails to be perpendicular ie his arm and body doesn’t come from 12’ o clock mark. His body falls towards right side and arm comes from 1:30 mark.
A. With this he loses atleast 5kph as his body is not behind completely when he delivers the ball.
B. He loses some height so he gets lesser bounce than the optimum bounce he extracts.
C. With this predominantly his wrist naturally would be pointed towards 1st slip so the ball will go with the angle and he would fail to shape it back into right hand batsman mostly and at most can just straighten. While he can swing it away from left hand batsman only when he pitches the ball at 4th or 5th stump line.
D. Side strain candidate.
This is why when he gets tonked he prefers around the wicket angle against RHB because he can than devoid the batsman of the room they are looking for to smoke ke the ball through the offside as Amal did yesterday when Usman operated from over the wicket.
To become unpredictable and devasting strike force Usman should have the capability to surprise the RHB by bringing the ball back into them from 4th stump angle so that the batsman is wary of his exploits. This way he would get lbws and bowled dismissals in play aswell. Wasim and Boult are prime examples aswell as peak Amir for Usman to understand this.
Now here comes the role of analysts with Pakistan team and analysts at NCA along with role of Mickey, Azhar, Mudassar and Mushtaq.
Slight changes in action are required along with drills. His action needs to be modified.
His bowling arm needs to be perpendicular when he releases the ball. ie 12 o clock angle.
Body should be upright and behind the ball.
He would than be able to bowl closer to the stumps and would develop the capacity to bring the ball back into RHB naturally with ideal wrist position.
He would than become Fast bowler who would quite often cross 145 kph mark and would get less injury prone aswell. His 2nd and 3rd spells would not see sharp dip of speed as witnessed now and he would get better bounce aswell.
This will make him a consistent performer and a match winner aswell.
He must improve in this area. If he doesn’t than I am afraid in long run younger guys would replace him. For instance at present I strongly believe that Ahmed Bashir is a better prospect and I am looking forward at him to somehow get into PSL incase of injury.
Than there is Arshad Iqbal who requires some work on his fitness and run up after which he will be ready.
Musa is short but quick enough while Naseem & Shaur are exciting talents.
Coming back to Usman I am not sure if before WC we can see his technical transformation because there isn’t enough time at the moment with busy schedule. Once he got unfit after destroying SL he has shown enough future promise but since our system is too old and way behind developed systems hence he lacked the vision and professionalism to not just do the rehabilitation work but bring back a refined improved Usman back into Int Cricket.
