Leading Lightfoot Medal fancy Rehan Bari is having the season of his life for Shepparton United

But he doesn’t see it that way.

The 42-year-old just loves batting and his 415 runs in the Haisman Shield this season serve as an indicator of how far he’s come since first landing in Shepparton 10 years ago, playing E-grade, if you can believe it.

Bari migrated to the area from Pakistan via Dubai and joined United through a good friend, the late Greg Sidebottom, who put a bat back in his hand.

“I’d already played a lot of cricket overseas, but when I migrated I didn’t know anyone, so I didn’t want to go into competitive cricket,” he said.

“(It was about) just playing for fun for me. To go into E-grade and have a bat and that’s it.

“Then the club saw me. Dwain Vidler, he just came to me and said ‘you should play up’ and I was like ‘no, I don’t want to go’.

“I was having other stuff going on, but after a season I just started playing A-grade. Josh Lawrence, Dwain Vidler and Chris Rendina helped me a lot in that.”

One could only imagine the frustration of having a genuinely class bat at the club who didn’t want to play Haisman Shield.

Bari had his reasons.

He’d just settled in a new area, was busy with a new job and family responsibilities and, by his own admission, was a few kilos overweight.

His last swing of the willow was for Emirates Cricket Board in United Arab Emirates’ short-form competition years earlier, and his jaw just about dropped when he heard how long Cricket Shepparton matches went for.

“The big difference is that because of the hot weather, their cricket was mostly 20 overs or 35 overs, not long. Not two-day or 50-over cricket,” he said.

“When I first started here it was two-day ... they told me it was 80 overs and I said ‘I’m not going to play in that heat again for that long’. That was weird for me.”

Initially, it may have been weird, but Bari didn’t take long to start rolling into gear.

For one, his 2017-18 season was the stuff of fiction.

The silky-smooth left-hander broke United’s individual high score record in 2017, belting 168 against Karramomus to smash Jordan Trevaskis’ 131 total set six years earlier.

He went on to win a third consecutive Williams Family Senior Club Champion award, was named runner-up in the Lightfoot Medal, made the Cricket Shepparton Team of the Season and pocketed the club’s A-grade batting and bowling awards.

Despite all the personal silverware — most of which he wasn’t able to collect in person due to holidaying in Pakistan — it was team glory which Bari craved the most.

In 2019, the Prince led the charge in United’s storied T20 premiership, smoking 112 not-out off 60 balls against Euroa in pool play, then backing it up with 42 and 2-10 in the final against the Magpies.

“That was a calculated sort of innings where you can’t just bash; I came in as an opener and stayed until the end as not-out,” he said.

“That was something special for me.”

If United’s past 10 seasons were rendered down to a fine tallow, Bari’s rich talent has been a constant in a decade depleted of team dominance.

He has scored thousands of runs, incalculable due to the powering down of Cricket Shepparton’s online archives, with four half-centuries this campaign and an unbeaten 109 not-out to go along with a mountain of wickets.

Bari has nine for the season and is ranked 12th in the Haisman Shield’s current bowling standings, appearing to be a shoo-in for the Lightfoot Medal after being a bridesmaid to the award on numerous occasions.

Does he care? Ultimately, no.

The Goulburn-Murray Water IT worker has become the combine’s “Mr Fix-It” this campaign, popping up with measured knock after measured knock while being United’s second best with ball in hand. But it’s all trivial in his mind.

What he wants is team success and if it is to come in March, Bari will be integral to getting them there.

He may not admit it, but there is pressure on his shoulders.

However, Bari’s methodical approach to the art of building an innings is unwavering and he won’t be changing it any time soon just for another personal trophy to add to the cabinet.

“I just love my time batting,” he said.

“I never set personal targets, I feel if you set targets you put some extra pressure on yourself. That just sticks in your mind, you worry about those things.

“In cricket, you don’t know what the pitch holds for you or what the position is like.

“The opposition might have some good quality bowlers or the pitch is very hard to bat on, and if you say you need to score this many runs, you might misread the pitch or the situation.

“To be honest, the only target for me is that my team goes into the finals.”