When he was named MVP of the 2009 National U-19 Tournament this past May in Brooklyn, N.Y., Muhammad Asad Ghous stamped himself as a top prospect for the future of USA cricket.

By Peter Della Penna

When he was named MVP of the 2009 National U-19 Tournament this past May in Brooklyn, N.Y., Muhammad Asad Ghous stamped himself as a top prospect for the future of USA cricket. But if it wasn’t for one of his good friends on the Atlantic Region squad, one of USA’s best young allrounders might still be passing away the time lounging around in club cricket.

“One of my friends, Yash Shah, he actually called me and said why don’t you try out,” said Ghous. “I didn’t even know about that, that they have an Under-19 team, until he told me about it.”

That’s almost as amazing as the story of how he started playing cricket in the USA in the first place. Ghous was born in Lahore, Pakistan and lived there until the age of 12. His father, Ghulam Ghous Chaudhary, who was a former Quaid-E-Azam first class cricketer for the WAPDA team in Pakistan’s domestic league, had been living in the USA for more than a decade and finally brought the rest of his family over in October of 2001, including Muhammad’s mother Anisa and his five siblings. Growing up in Lahore, Ghous enjoyed kite running on the rooftops of his community as well as playing tape ball cricket, but never with a hard ball. When he came to the USA, there wasn’t much cricket and overall, he was very uncomfortable in his new surroundings.

Pic: Ghous (right) receives his MVP Award at the USA Under 19 Tournament.

“When I came here, it was like kind of a different atmosphere and everything,” said Ghous. “When I came here I was kind of sad, because I didn’t know nobody here. I just sat home. I didn’t know even how to speak English. But slowly I went to school, then slowly started learning the language, start making friends, kind of enjoying it and then started coming into the atmosphere.”

A few years later, Ghous was hanging out near the family apartment in Iselin, N.J., when he noticed some people practicing the game he grew up playing in Pakistan.

“I was playing basketball here and there was a couple of guys from team Prince. They were practicing in a tennis court,” said Ghous. “I just had never seen people play cricket when I moved to Iselin. Since I came to the US, I had never seen people play cricket. I never even knew that there was a league. So I met these people at a tennis court and from there I started playing hard ball.”

“He started playing for us in 2006,” said Waseem Arif, the captain of Prince Cricket Club in the Cricket League of New Jersey. “He was just a little kid then. He always had a dream to field for somebody on the field.” That’s a far cry from the 19-year-old’s current role on the team as an opening batsman. Now, the dream is for somebody to be able to play with Ghous. “He’s a very talented cricketer,” said Arif. “Every time I watch him, it’s totally amazing.”

“I saw Muhammad last year for the first time,” said Basil Butcher, coach of the Atlantic Region U-19 team. Ghous was first selected to play for the region in 2008 when the National U-19 Tournament was held in Florida. “He came to trials and from the first ball he played I said we got a good young player right here, from the first ball he played. Later on in that trial match, he took a catch at slip off an inside edge and I was very impressed with him at that time.”

“He’s a brilliant fielder. I’ve never seen him drop a catch,” said Arif. “He’s a very good fielder in the slips and gully.”

Just like his discovery of club cricket and U-19 representative cricket, it was discovered that Ghous is a talented off-spin bowler almost by accident.

“It was while we were in Florida, we had a little practice after the game and he went and he started bowling,” said Butcher. “I was like, ‘What?!’ I said, ‘Muhammad, you are a talented spinner. You have to work on your bowling because you’re gonna bowl next year,’ because he was doing things with the ball as an off-spinner that was just natural. It was from that encouragement last year that he started working on his bowling.”

Ghous worked on his bowling, batting and fielding to become a vital member of the Atlantic Region U-19 team that went to the championship game of the 2009 National U-19 Tournament, which took place Memorial Day Weekend May 22-25. Once again, fortune smiled kindly on Ghous to allow him to play in the tournament in the first place after he was involved in an altercation during a CLNJ match on May 17.

“I was batting on the other side with him. We were opening,” said Arif when speaking about the early season match against South Gujarat Cricket Club. Prince needed to chase 137 in 35 overs when the sledging started to get out of hand early in the second innings. “He’s a kid, he couldn’t calm himself that match. But I told him, let them do it, we’ve gotta finish the game and then we’ll talk about it. We just want to do it with bat and ball, we can’t do it with our mouth. When you have the bat in your hands, you have to be calm and just give your answers with the bat and he said, ‘Ok, no problem.’” Soon after, Ghous was bowled by Rikish Patel for 5.  “He bowls me and I’m looking at it,” said Ghous. “He bowls me and I just stand there and he just came up. You know how they like cheer, he didn’t even go to his team. He came right up in front of my face and said some bad things. I just pushed him back.”

SGCC captain Uday Patel did not want to discuss the incident.  Speaking to DreamCricket.com, he said: "These things happen on the field in the heat of the moment.  As part of the New Jersey cricket fraternity, I am proud of Ghous' achievements at the Under 19 level and I hope that he takes USA to the Under 19 World Cup."

While Patel was suspended for one game, Ghous was suspended for four games, 25 percent of the CLNJ season, after being found guilty of four CLNJ Code of Conduct offenses. However, the National U-19 Tournament was underway before a ruling was handed down.

“We found out regarding the suspension actually on the morning of the second game we were playing against North East,” said Butcher. “The thing that we looked at, we saw the beginning date of his suspension was going to be May 27. So at that point, he was not suspended as of yet. His suspension was going to start the week following Memorial Weekend…. This is what a USACA official said to me. This doesn’t affect him because the date of when the suspension was gonna start was gonna be after the tournament was over. That was the reason why it didn’t affect his status with the team.”

The mental toughness of Ghous shined brightly throughout that tournament, but especially on that day against North East, which was a big reason why he was eventually named tournament MVP.

“I must say that from the first game we played this year he made [75] in that game and then he came back in the second game which thus far I would say in his young career is the best innings I’ve seen him play, the 93 not out against North East,” said Butcher. “Because what was so important about that innings is that wickets were falling around him and he kept his head and he batted responsibly and saw us through to the end. I said to him since, I said, ‘Muhammad, if you can replicate what you did in that game every time you go to bat, you will be successful as a batter.’” He finished the tournament as the leading run scorer with 247 in four innings and three half-centuries.

In addition to being a run scoring machine, Ghous has a reputation as one of the most beloved and fun members of any team he plays on. Off the field, he is a mild-mannered and pleasant person to talk to. When things are tense on the field, he is usually the one trying to keep things loose and laid back.

“He’s a nice guy, funny guy,” said Henry Wardley, a teammate of Ghous on both the Atlantic Region U-19 and USA U-19 teams. “I got to bat with him on the first day [of the National U-19 Tournament] and I realized after about 45 minutes that most of the stuff that comes out of his mouth doesn’t make any sense.”

“He’s a very jovial character, funny guy, makes a lot of jokes,” said Butcher. “Sometimes you think that, ‘Muhammad, focus on the game. Stop joking around,’ and stuff like that.”

His contribution to the USA U-19 squad in July during the ICC Americas U-19 Regional Qualifier was certainly no joke. Despite being picked primarily as a batsman, Ghous was one of USA’s best bowlers. Even though he only took four wickets at 21.25, he built suffocating pressure by tying up one end which allowed for wickets to be taken by his teammates bowling at the other end. He finished with an economy rate of 2.93 in four matches. Ghous is also one of the best players of spin bowling on the team. At the upcoming ICC U-19 World Cup Global Qualifier, he will have a major role in Team USA’s middle order to keep the runs ticking over on the turning wickets of Maple Leaf Cricket Club in King City, Ontario. Ghous is glad to take on the responsibility though, and proud to represent the USA after becoming a citizen in 2004.

“It’s an honor. I’m an American. You got to be very lucky to have American citizenship,” said Ghous. “It’s a really powerful country and you want to be part of it, which I am and I love it. Anywhere you want to go you can represent America and tell them proudly, ‘I’m an American.’”