IT WAS the great Australian all-rounder Keith Miller who waved off the pressure of Test cricket by contending that "pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse''.

A member of the 1948 Invincibles team, Miller was referring to his time as a fighter pilot with the RAF 69 Squadron flying over Europe during World War II.

It is a sentiment that resonates with Victorian leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed.

Ahmed's application for Australian citizenship was approved during the week - the culmination of a four-year struggle that began in Pakistan's north-western frontier provence, near the Afghanistan border.

During 2009, extremists had assailed Ahmed with death threats for his perceived promotion of western values, partly because he had played 10 first-class matches and was coaching other cricketers.

Moreso for helping a non-government organisation that championed women's education, health and vaccinations.

"I got seriously threatened by those people,'' Ahmed said.

''I don't want to say their name but they are terrorists. Terrorists in the eyes of every single human being.

"They terrorised me, they made death threats to me.

"They don't like to educate women. They want the people in the dark so that they can dominate them easily.''



TO LIVE in an environment where the Taliban and other extremists had begun to cast a sinister shadow was distressing to a young man who had grown up a reverent Muslim, the son of a Pakistan army officer.

His father, Ahmed Shah, died of a heart attack when Fawad was about 18 months old, leaving his mother, Rahat, to raise four children on an army pension.

The Swabi district where the family lived was a relatively peaceful and highly educated region, and ''being a normal kid in Pakistan I was crazy about the cricket. My mother was always angry because I was playing cricket or watching cricket. She was saying study, study, study''.

Fawad and his elder brother, Sajjad, played cricket against the neighbourhood kids on the dusty streets near their home.

''We used a taped tennis ball,'' he said.

"The bat, we just made it from a piece of wood at the furniture shop, told the man can he make us something.''

Ahmed would ''bowl off-spin, leg-spin or fast, but I was mostly a wicketkeeper''.

What he began to notice was the flood of Afghan refugees escaping the conflict between the Soviet-led forces and the Mujahideen.

And as he grew older, he began to become aware of the threat of terrorism.

"It was safe when I was a child, there was nothing like that, but since 9/11 things are going from worse to worse, especially in the past five or six years,'' Ahmed said.

"Things have become extremely bad. People are suffering and especially the poor people. People dying for nothing. Car bomb blasts, target killing, insurgencies. Especially where I was living. Those areas are now the ones in the red zone.''

Cricket remained his refuge. One of his fondest childhood memories came at the age of 10 when Pakistan lifted the 1992 World Cup after defeating England at the MCG.

At the age of 17 he was handed a leather cricket ball for the first time, proceeding to impress the school selectors by sharply turning a few leg breaks in the nets.

"The pitch was just cement,'' he recalled. "it was really hard to turn the ball on there.''

The school's cricket kit, with its pads and gloves, was a source of wonderment.

''I didn't even have cricket shoes.''

Ahmed studied hard at the Government Degree College and gradually carved out a professional cricket career.

At age 23 he made his first-class debut with Abbottabad, and over the next four years he eked out 23 wickets across 10 matches. He began to coach women cricketers.

That is when the threats started to come.

"The terrorists would come straight to my face and say, 'Step down from what you are doing otherwise you will see a serious problem later on','' he said.

"I got an opportunity to play for my state in Islamabad, but they still keep following me, keep threatening me, texting me and saying, 'You are still helping those people and when we find you we will seriously harm you'.

"When it comes to these threats on your life you don't have options.''

The one option he did have was to flee Pakistan. The opportunity to do so came when a friend suggested he could organise a short-stay visa to play club cricket in Australia.

Ahmed took up the offer at the start of 2010, but arrived at the club in central New South Wales towards the end of the summer. With two matches remaining he was ineligible to play in the finals.

He moved to Melbourne, where he knew several people from Pakistan, and met Adnan Khawaja, a Port Melbourne cricketer who invited him to play for the Western Warriors, a Sunday team comprised of sub-continental cricketers.

Khawaja also steered Ahmed to Victorian Turf Cricket Association club, Hoppers Crossing, where he took a club-record 90 wickets in 24 games at an average of 11.74 runs apiece.

Beginning to understand the state's cricket pathway, Ahmed also gained permission to play some Twenty20 matches for Premier Cricket club Melbourne University. Club president Derek Bennett said Ahmed immediately impressed with his quietly spoken determination and willingness to learn.

"But I can assure you he was living a very, very hand-to-mouth existence,'' Bennett said.

''He was living with a whole lot of other asylum seekers in a hostel in Yarraville provided by a charity.

"When he first arrived in the city he didn't have two bob to his name, he didn't know anybody, he didn't know how to catch a train. But he always made it his business to find out how things worked. He was always asking questions, trying to find out how things worked, how our society operates.''

All along the way Ahmed remained on a bridging visa, applying for refugee status. His first application was rejected in late 2010, while his subsequent appeal took a further 18 months to reach the tribunal.

During that time Ahmed was only permitted to work only 15 hours a week. He picked fruit in Bendigo and studied to get a forklift licence.

''The first two years were really really tough, but then I got a good job working in the K-Mart warehouse for a year,'' Ahmed said.

His friend, Khawaja, later explained that this dream job involved waking at 4am and quite a deal of heavy lifting.

Cricket remained both a passion and a welcome release from Ahmed's often discouraging pursuit of asylum.

He made a habit of bowling 15 overs every day and undertook a Cricket Victoria coaching accreditation course.

Bennett recalled: ``Part of that program involved going to watch the Victorian Bushrangers train. So he grabbed the bloke running the course and asked if he could have a bowl.

''(Test opener) Rob Quiney was batting and the first ball he bowled him through the gate, the next one he got a wrong'un past him. He bowled for an hour and the coaches asked him to keep coming back as a net bowler.''

IN OCTOBER 2011 Ahmed received the most brutal of reminders about what was at risk should he be forced to return to Pakistan.

He read a report about Nauman Habib, a seam bowler from his home state who had just taken seven wickets for Peshawar in the opening round of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy.

The next day Habib disappeared on his way between home and the gym.

"We were from the same state but from different regions,'' Ahmed said.

''We played together and he was a good friend of mine over 10 years.

"They kidnapped him.

"After a few days somebody found him in a bag in pieces.

"He was a handsome guy, such a nice human being. Forget about the cricket, he was such a nice human being, and I was so upset after that.

"Still nobody knows what happened to him, why he has been killed.''

Habib had been repeatedly hit with a blunt instrument; his body carried the marks of torture.

That horrible episode helps to contextualise Ahmed's distress when he learned last September that his claim for asylum had been rejected for a third time. An immigration official insisted he get his paperwork in order for immediate deportation.

"I was really upset,'' Ahmed said.

''That was the worst moment for me.

"I went through really stressed times. Nightmares. I couldn't sleep.''

Now playing cricket for Melbourne University, he missed the start of the next match ``because I was awake all night worrying and when it was time to go to the ground I had fallen asleep''.

"Life was going really bad for me. There was no hope, you know? But the good thing was I had made so many good friends here. So I never gave up, I fought and fought and fought. The only thing I knew was never give up. At any stage in any life you must never give up.''

Khawaja recalled those dark days: ``You can't believe how stressed he was. He called me some time after midnight because he'd had another refusal about his visa. I had to give him some encouragement and tell him everything would be all right.''

Ahmed raised his plight at the cricket club.

"We had 14 or 20 days to do something or he was on a plane home,'' Bennett said.

"It wasn't about him thinking, 'I'll never get a chance to play for Victoria' it was about, 'I'm going to die. I'm going to get dumped back in Pakistan and they'll find me'. He was in a really bad way.

"What we found was that the only real option available to him was to appeal directly to the Federal Immigration Minister.''

Melbourne Uni found a young lawyer playing in its third XI: ''Tony Pick. His nickname became pro bono,'' Bennett chuckled.

"He kept saying, 'DB, you know I'm not an immigration lawyer' and we'd just tell him, 'Don't worry, you're going beautifully'. In the end we made a submission with 40 letters of support.''

Among those was one from former Uni opening bowler and now Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland.

"For us it was always about Fawad not having to go back to where he had been and to end up with a bullet in his head,'' Bennett said.

"For me the essence of the story is that at no point did anyone from Cricket Australia ask whether he was any good. It wasn't a matter of doing this because he was going to be Australia's next great leg-spinner, it was always just about trying to help a refugee who was a cricketer.''

In other words, this was not about Ahmed becoming the next Shane Warne. It was about him not becoming the next Nauman Habib.

IT WAS while waiting to hear from then Immigration Minister Chris Bowen that Bennett received a welcome phone call from an unexpected source.

"The key moment came when (Test batsman) Ed Cowan rang,'' Bennett said.

The Australians, preparing for the first Test of the summer against South Africa, were looking for a net bowler whose action resembled Proteas leg-spinner Imran Tahir. Cowan recalled seeing just such an action when Ahmed was bowling in the MCG nets.

"And then Ed said, 'Do you reckon Fawad could come up and bowl to us?'.''

Knowing full well that the assignment could help generate some timely publicity, Bennett had no hesitation in agreeing on Ahmed's behalf.

After several days having his face and story plastered across the nation's media, Ahmed found his application for permanent residency status granted by the Minister.

"Of all the things that have happened to me, the best moment for me was knowing I could stay,'' Ahmed said.

Since that time, it has been his bowling rather than his residency that has made headlines.

Last summer he played in Victoria's final three Shield matches, taking 16 wickets at 28.37, including a seven-wicket haul against Queensland. His form in limited-overs cricket has been even more impressive.

He was selected in two Australia A matches in Belfast and Bristol last month, where he performed moderately, struggling with the unfamiliar British conditions.

Upon return to Melbourne he discovered that his application for Australian citizenship had been approved. All that remained was a citizenship ceremony, most likely this week before he leaves on Sunday for the upcoming Australia A tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Khawaja is delighted for his friend: ''I've never seen him smile the way he is now. I said to him the other day, 'This is the best smile I've seen in three years'.''

Now, much is being made about the prospect of Ahmed being elevated to Test ranks.

Yet, as much as he dreams about it, this most remarkable Australian might not get to bowl in this Ashes series.

He might not even ever get the chance to play under a Baggy Green cap.

But if that chance never comes, don't expect him to lose any sleep over it.

"I came here for a safe life, not for the cricket,'' he said.

"To play for Victoria or Australia was far away from the dream. I just came here to just live as a normal human being, as a safe human being.''

Originally published as From terrorist target to Test cusp