Kamran Ghulam's career doesn't make sense. Not because, until today, he averaged 50 over a decade of first-class cricket without ever having played a Test at a time Pakistan have been looking for Test batters. No, there was something else, especially if you looked at his ESPNcricinfo profile.
Ghulam was a ghost international cricketer. He had played one match for Pakistan, an ODI against New Zealand, without having batted or bowled. Hit the scorecard link, and it gets weirder. He doesn't feature in Pakistan's line-up at all.
Earlier that day, Haris Sohail was hit on the head by a 150kph Lockie Ferguson bouncer, battling on until he was dismissed. He wouldn't take the field in the second innings, and though Pakistan could just as easily have called for a replacement fielder, they made a concussion substitute. Ghulam was given his first international cap; perhaps Pakistan felt he'd bowl. He didn't.
In some perverse way, that serving as the entirety of one of Pakistan's most prolific young batters was an apt metaphor for the state of Pakistan's domestic structure. A reminder you didn't need to be standing on thin ice to slip through the cracks. This was a player fully integrated into Pakistan's cricketing network, patchy as it was, but only hovered around the outskirts of the national team. He is by no means an exception. Of the dozen players who have scored more Quaid-e-Azam trophy runs than him since he made his debut, five of them have never played a Test match; another has only played one. It feels jarring to note he celebrated his 29th birthday earlier this week, so long has he been viewed as a future batting star.
Like the Lochness Monster or Big Foot, Ghulam was ubiquitous, and yet nowhere to been seen. His name showed up in media releases, and he was topping Quaid-e-Azam trophy charts. He'd been selected for this or that A tour, and was in a Pakistan squad here or there. This summer, he was playing in the Huddersfield league - as you do when you're a rising batting star. That the club he played for was called Hoylandswaine didn't exactly help any claims of Ghulam's verisimilitude. That phantom appearance against New Zealand was the holy grail of Ghulam sightings, but could we really be sure?
Having spent so long lurking in the shadowy underworld of cricketers Pakistan has disused to the point of atrophy, Ghulam suddenly has been pinned into place and had a flashlight burn into his retinas over the weekend. Pakistan dropped Babar Azam, prematurely according to some, contentiously according to all; it was a move even the Pakistan head coach did not call for. It sent Babar's fandom into meltdown, and even those who had criticised his recent form felt the decision to leave him out after one Test was borne of panic rather than logic. Some of the stray ire was directed Ghulam's way, as if his entire career had built up to nicking a spot off Babar at number four. A snow leopard dragged into a desert circus wouldn't have felt more out of place.
Pakistan had prepared the same pitch used for the first Test for this one, playing just one fast bowler on what they hoped would be a batting minefield, and ten overs in, that wish was being fulfilled. Jack Leach and Shoaib Bashir were already into the attack, Abdullah Shafique and Shan Masood already back in the hut. The ball stayed low, and spun unpredictably. If ever a debutant batter, one stepping into Babar's shoes, was being set up to fail, it was here.
Ben Stokes, who had moved a fielder into the short leg position Masood had obligingly chipped one to, spent his time setting the field. A second slip was brought in, and a performance was made out of bringing a silly mid-off to accompany short leg. But Ghulam had waited more than a decade for this moment, and patience came naturally to him. A snatched single got him off the mark, but he what followed was all steel.
He was batting alongside Saim Ayub, another player under pressure. The duo understood the precarity of their position, and that wanton attack would only be a speciously positive approach: one that potentially brought some quick runs, but certainly offered England quick wickets. And so, on a strip that barely matched the quality of those he buttered his bread on in domestic cricket, Ghulam dug on.
The conditions were old-school subcontinental, and so Ghulam played old-school subcontinental cricket. According to ESPNcricinfo's ball-tracking records, he defended or left along 138 of his 224 deliveries. But this was no blockathon; Ghulam's concentration levels never wavered, picking length early to sweep or reverse, each of which he did four times. When Bashir tossed one up late in the day, he hit him into the sightscreen. When Brydon Carse overpitched, it didn't matter it was the first delivery with the second new ball, Ghulam leaned into the straight drive and picked up another four.
Observers who have watched him play on the domestic setup will tell you this is simply how Ghulam plays, the runs a mere byproduct of solid technique and judicious shot selection. Ghulam might bat how the game demands it to, but appears oddly disconnected from the stage his individual innings is placed at. It was illustrated in the way he got to his century, smearing Joe Root into the onside for four; they were the only runs he scored off a slog sweep all innings, and one of just two times in 224 balls he attempted that shot. The opportunity was simply there.
And, at long last, it feels that opportunity is finally here for him. After a decade defined by his absence, Ghulam is present in every sense of the word. Pakistan's future star batter may finally be here, and Kamran Ghulam's career may at last begin to make sense.