Mushtaq Ahmed takes lots of wickets

Mushtaq Ahmed's great isn't he? Stumbling in with all the eagerness of a slightly simple dog; screaming his appeals like a slightly simple dog; and working out the batsman's weaknesses like the biggest supercomputer in the world. Plus he's got a beard. We're a fan of Mushtaq Ahmed's, make no mistake. We're led to believe that he's a nice bloke as well, but we'd think that Mushtaq Ahmed was nice whether we'd heard that or not.

There was a strange sort of a match between Durham and Sussex yesterday. Sussex won by an innings and 39 runs having only managed 229 in their one innings. Durham were bowled out for 110 in their first innings and then, having reached 47 without loss in their second innings, fell to 80 all out.

It was pretty damp weather yesterday, so your first thought would be that it was perfect weather for swing and seam, but that wasn't it. Steve Harmison may have proved his form with 4-43 during Sussex's innings and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, who we were embiggening a couple of days ago, may have taken nine wickets in the match, but it was Mushtaq Ahmed's day - as it so often is.

He took three wickets in an over to presage Durham's second innings collapse and finished with match figures of 10-37. It's probably fair to say that Durham's batsmen didn't get the measure of him. Not many do. We could probably take the trouble to find out how many wickets he's taken in county cricket and at what average, but we all know how good Mushtaq Ahmed is without statistics, don't we?

Mushtaq Ahmed is as good as buying the wrong type of beer only to find that you prefer your accidental selection.

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Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Mushtaq Ahmed decides the County Championship

Mushtaq Ahmed has pretty much decided the County Championship by taking 4-60 in bowling out Sussex's opponents, Nottinghamshire, for 165. He's now taken 4-6 to reduce them to 50-4 in their second innings. That's four wickets for six runs, to clarify.

But more than that, Mushtaq Ahmed's season-long contribution has also decided the County Championship. The man just takes heaps and heaps of wickets. If you're batting last against Sussex, you're done for.

Mushtaq Ahmed has now taken 12,000 first-class wickets for Sussex at an average of 4.15. He has, at one time or another, bowled out everyone in the phone book and even some fictional characters, such as Sherlock Holmes and Wizbit - Wizbit came down the pitch and was stumped.

Lancashire will rightly blame the weather for their impending runners-up spot, but we're sure they'll not begrudge Sussex the title one bit. They shouldn't.

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