George Linde and the finger of fate

"Ag, you know, it's OK, actually," began when he was asked, during an online press conference on Saturday, about the state of the little finger on his bowling hand. Then he got down to the gory details of what happened on Thursday, when Babar Azam smashed the left-arm spinner's 17th ball of the straight back at him.

"I thought that's my season done when I saw the injury," Linde said. "I started running off the field because I saw a bone sticking out. As I was running I just popped it back in myself."

All television viewers saw as Linde loped off was blood painting his whites an alarming shade of red. He covered the rest with his hands. "The doctor and the physio were awesome," he said. "I got stitches, went for X-rays, and luckily, for some reason, my finger wasn't broken."

So Linde returned to the fray. He sent down just 18 more balls in Pakistan's first innings, without success. But in nine overs on Saturday he bowled with fine control and attacking intent to take the important wickets of Azhar Ali, Fawad Alam and Faheem Ashraf in nine overs that cost only a dozen runs. And that despite having to change the way he held the ball: "I had to make a small adjustment with the grip. Not too much. I never knew I use my pinkie when I bowl. Now, every time I bowl, I've got to first lift it up a little bit so I can get a better grip on the ball."

If that seems too stoic to be true, consider that Linde is 29, and that before he made his Test debut against India in Ranchi in October 2019 he didn't seem bound for a place at the top table. Consider, too, that he has had to bowl his way into a team that already includes Keshav Maharaj. And that he mightn't have played in Rawalpindi had Tabraiz Shamsi not been taken out of the mix by fears that he wasn't yet over the back spasm that had ruled him out of the first Test in Karachi. So, unlike that of many players, Linde's perspective isn't short on reality: "You don't know when you're going to get the opportunity to play for your country," he said. "So that's not going to get me down. It's just pain."

And there was a bigger picture to consider: "There are people sick at home, people who are seriously ill, who are dying because of Covid or other diseases or something else. My injury is nothing compared to that. You're playing for your country. I'm not going to stand back just because my finger is a bit sore. It's painful for 10 minutes. You get an injection and you go back."

Please, Mr Linde, keep coming back.