That 33-year-old Tanvir has been one of the outstanding Twenty20 bowlers is beyond doubt. His appearances for Pakistan have been sporadic, blame injuries and inconsistency for it, but he is much sought-after in T20 leagues around the world, and is now closing in on 300 appearances overall.

Now back at Guyana, table-toppers after 14 games this season, Tanvir is swinging it fast with his bagful of tricks and wrong-footed deliveries.

“Since I’ve been playing CPL, I’ve been doing well. I started with St Lucia (Zouks), then St Kitts (and Nevis Patriots), and now two years with Guyana. My performance kept improving as the years went by. Especially the last two years were tremendous,” he said in an interview with CPLT20.

“But you can’t take anything for granted. You have to do well every year. You have to do the basics right again and again.”

It looks easy when Tanvir does it, and being a CPL veteran now, “I know which pitch suits which kind of bowling, where the ball will swing, where I need to use my variation. So that is the key.”

In three games this season, Tanvir just has two wickets, but he isn’t unduly worried. He is enjoying himself with his ‘jolly’ teammates, and trying to ‘gel in’ again, as he knows a pro must.

It started for him back in 2007, when he turned out against India in the tied (India won the bowl-out) game of the ICC World T20 2007 and returned 1/18. Fame was assured after the fabulous 6/14 for Rajasthan Royals against Chennai Super Kings in the inaugural Indian Premier League in 2008 – those are still the seventh best returns in T20 history.

For Pakistan, there have been two Tests, 62 one-day internationals and 57 T20 Internationals, the last of them coming in April 2017.

One can’t be certain if there is any more international cricket left in Tanvir, but in the T20 circuit, he is still hot property, as he proved with another incredible spell in 2017 edition of the CPL – 4-1-3-5 for Guyana against Barbados Tridents. His wickets: Kane Williamson, Dwayne Smith, Eoin Morgan, Kieron Pollard and Wahab Riaz.

“Going back to that day, as a team we were struggling, we needed back-to-back wins. It just happened. I was just trying to pitch the ball in the right area and it just … keep going, keep going,” he recalls.

“The first over I bowled against Kane Williamson, I think that was the best I have bowled ever. Beating him four times out of six (five) was very unique for me. That was time I thought, you know, today is my day. So, yeah, things just happened for me.”

Things have happened for Tanvir, in the CPL and in leagues in Pakistan, England, Bangladesh, a little bit in Australia and India, and in Canada more recently. The wickets have kept coming, only not for the national team, where it’s stuck at 130 after 121 appearances across formats.