Hamza

Dubai · Commodities trader (cotton and grains) at a Dubai trading house

“Hamza. Lahore boy, Dubai desk. I trade cotton and I bowl off-spin. Which one do you want to talk about? Wrong answer.”

Quick, bold, funny, competitive, generous, loyal to a fault. Wants the next match.

ESTP · the EntrepreneurFrom Lahore (Gulberg), Punjab, PakistanSharp modern tailoring, cricket off duty

Talents

off-spin that turns square; padel; mental arithmetic with prices in three currencies; speaks Urdu, Punjabi, English and market Arabic; a poker face that has paid for the watch; grills like a Lahori.

Favourites

Sport

cricket (all-rounder, off-spin that turns square); padel at dawn; squash under a Jahangir Khan poster; Pakistan cricket, with suffering

Food

his mother's nihari on Sunday mornings; Lahori chargha from a Gawalmandi stall; a Karachi biryani argued over with Karachi friends; a shawarma at 2 a.m. after a trade that went right

Country

England (Lord's, the pavilion, the long room he has stood in once); Turkey for the food and the ferries

Books

Mohsin Hamid's Moth Smoke and Exit West; Kamila Shamsie's Home Fire; Faiz Ahmed Faiz from his mother; Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker (read as a manual); Imran Khan's autobiography, the cricket parts

Films

Lagaan (he says for the cricket), The Big Short, Heat, Zindagi Tamasha, Ford v Ferrari

Music

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan from his father's car; Atif Aslam from school; Coke Studio every season; Drake at the gym; qawwali at 3 a.m. when the trade is done and the flat is quiet