Saturday 20 April 2013

Rashid Latif

Rashid Latif Biography

Source (google.com.pk)
Rashid Latif (born October 14, 1968 in Karachi) was a Pakistani cricketer. He started playing for the Pakistani national team in 1992 after the World Cup. He impressed the selectors by hitting a fine 50 in his Test debut. This however did not cement his place in the national squad as he was throughout his career in competition with another Pakistani wicketkeeper named Moin Khan. This led to ongoing changes of wicket-keepers for the next decade. In 1996, he announced retirement after differences with some team players and the team management. He came back shortly and became the captain of Pakistani cricket team in 1998. Soon however, again due to differences, he was dropped from the team and again replaced by Moin. Latif remained out of the national squad until 2001 when after a string of poor performances, the Pakistani team replaced Moin Khan (who was the captain) with Rashid . After coming back into the squad, he somewhat cemented his place in the squad by keeping the wicket and giving a string of good batting performances. The highlight of his career came when after the 2003 Cricket World Cup, he was announced the captain of the Pakistani team. Under him, Pakistan successfully experimented with several new players and the team gave positive results. He was also involved with uniting the players through his captaincy skills both on and off the field. However, differences between Latif and the team management again surfaced in 2003-2004 which saw him the captaincy to Inzamam-ul-Haq. He was omitted from the squad and since has been out of the team despite his attempts to get back into squad during 2003-2005. As of April 2006, Rashid Latif have retired from first class cricket as he toured with Pakistani senior players to play against Indian senior players in April 2006. This series is played between players who have retired from the sport. Also, according to statistics available on cricinfo's website, it can be seen that Rashid Latif has not participated in first class cricket since 2005. His last international outing was in 2006 when he played for England's Lashings cricket club.
Pakistani wicket keeper and a right handed batsman who represented the Pakistani cricket team in Test cricket and One Day International matches, between 1992 and 2003. He also served as the captain of the Pakistan cricket team in 2003. Latif is the current coach of the Afghan National Cricket Team.
was a Pakistani cricketer. He started playing for the Pakistani national team in 1992 after the World Cup. He impressed the selectors by hitting a fine 50 in his Test debut. This however did not cement his place in the national squad as he was through out his career in competition with another Pakistani wicketkeeper named Moin Khan. This led to ongoing changes of wicket-keepers for the next decade. In 1996, he announced retirement after differences with some team players and the team management. He came back shortly and became the captain of Pakistani cricket team in 1998. Soon however, again due to differences, he was dropped from the team and again replaced by Moin.

Latif remained out of the national squad until 2001 when after a string of poor performances, the Pakistani team replaced Moin Khan (who was the captain) with Rashid . After coming back into the squad, he somewhat cemented his place in the squad by keeping the wicket and giving a string of good batting performances. The highlight of his career came when after the 2003 Cricket World Cup, he was announced the captain of the Pakistani team. Under him, Pakistan successfully experimented with several new players and the team gave positive results. He was also involved with uniting the players through his captaincy skills both on and off the field. However, differences between Latif and the team management again surfaced in 2003-2004 which saw him the captaincy to Inzamam-ul-Haq. He was omitted from the squad and since has been out of the team despite his attempts to get back into squad during 2003-2005.
International Debut: 1992
Batting and fielding records
M Inns NO Runs HS Ave BF SR 100 50 4s 6s Ct St 
Test 37 57 9 1381 150 28.77 2912 47.42 1 7 156 5 119 11
ODI 166 117 29 1709 79 19.42 2237 76.40 - 3 125 18 182 38

Bowling records
M Inns Balls Runs Wkts BBI BBM Ave Eco SR 4W 5W 10W 
Test 37 1 12 10 - - - - 5.00 - - - -
ODI 166 - - - - - - - - - - - -

Career Statistics
Test Debut: England v Pakistan at London, 06-09, Aug 1992
ODI Debut: England v Pakistan at Nottingham, Aug 20, 1992
Profile
Neat as he was as a wicketkeeper and as a batsman (he was selected for his Test debut on the strength of his batting), Rashid Latif earned more fame for his controversial acts than for his cricketing deeds. He announced his retirement in the middle of Pakistan's 1994-95 tour of Zimbabwe, following some fishy goings-on in South Africa under Salim Malik's captaincy, then returned as "Mr Clean" to captain the side after he had given plenty of evidence to Judge Qayyum's inquiry. All went well at first in South Africa in 1997-98 until he found, like Rameez Raja and Aamir Sohail, that certain senior players did not want things to change. He made a surprise return to the colours for the 2001 tour of England, and got a second shot at the captaincy when Waqar Younis was sacked after Pakistan's miserable performance at the 2003 World Cup. There was more controversy to follow, though. He kept up his crusade to clean up the game, writing an open letter to the ICC, warning of the dangers of "fancy fixing". Then, he was suspended for five matches for wrongly claiming a catch during the series against Bangladesh. These incidents led to the souring of relations between him and the Pakistan board, and ultimately resulted in his stepping down from captaincy at the end of that series.
As of April 2006, Rashid Latif have retired from first class cricket as he toured with Pakistani senior players to play against Indian senior players in April of 2006. This series is played between players who have retired from the sport. Also, according to statistics available on cricinfo's website, it can be seen that Rashid Latif has not participated in first class cricket since 2005. His last international outing was in 2006 when he played for England's Lashings cricket club.
Latif started playing for the Pakistan national cricket team in 1992 after the 1992 Cricket World Cup. He impressed the national selectors by scoring 50 runs in his Test debut, However it did not cement his place in the national squad, throughout his career because he was competing with another Pakistani wicketkeeper, Moin Khan. This led to ongoing changes of wicket keepers for the next decade. In 1996, he announced his retirement after conflicts with some team players and the team management. He returned back to the Pakistan team and became the captain of Pakistan in 1998.
Latif remained out of the national squad until 2001, when after a string of poor performances, the Pakistan team replaced Moin Khan, who was selected as the captain. After returning back into the squad, he somewhat cemented his place by keeping the wicket and giving a string of good batting performances. The highlight of his career came when after the2003 Cricket World Cup, he was announced as the captain of the Pakistan team. Under his leadership, Pakistan successfully experimented with several new players and the team gave positive results. He was also involved with uniting the players through his captaincy in both on and off the cricket field. However, indifferences between Latif and the team management again surfaced in 2003-2004, which resulted in him giving away the captaincy to former Pakistan batsman Inzamam-ul-Haq. He was omitted from the squad and since then was never recalled in the team, despite his attempts to get back into the squad during 2003-2005.
Rashid Latif
In April 2006, Latif has retired from First class cricket as he toured with the Pakistani senior players to play against Indian senior players in April 2006. This series is played between players who have retired from professional cricket. Also, according to statistics available on ESPN cricinfo sport's website, it can be seen that Latif has not participated in first class cricket since 2005. His last international match was in 2006, when he played for Lashings cricket club, a club in England.

Rashid Latif

 

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Shoaib Akhter

Shoaib Akhter Biography

Source (google.com.pk)
Shoaib Akhtar is a former professional cricketer who played testes and One Day International matches for the Pakistan national team in ICC organized events. He has been dubbed as The Rawalpindi Express after the place where he was born and he is arguably the fastest bowler the world of cricket has ever seen, easily clocking 150 km/hour on many occasions. He became the first man to bowl a delivery over 100 miles/hour or 161.3 km/hour, which is the fastest delivery ever bowled in the history of cricket against England. Moreover, not only did he achieve a speed of 100 miles/hour on his delivery, he achieved it twice during one single match and that is something that makes him very unique in the world of fast bowlers. His prowess lay in being able to bowl fast and precise Yorkers as well as quick bouncers and these abilities made him one of the greatest as well as most feared bowlers of all time, the likes of which had not been seen in international cricket since the times of Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Jeff Thompson, Dennis Lillie, Malcolm Marshall and the likes – players who depended on raw pace to pick up wickets.

However, Shoaib Akhtar was also a very controversial figure and it followed him wherever he went. It has been said that he was very selfish and not a team man. The Pakistan team management once sent him home from Australia in the middle of a series because of an alleged poor behavior on his part. In 2006, he was perhaps involved in the biggest controversy when WADA found Shoaib Akhtar guilty of taking performance enhancing drugs and the ICC banned him from playing cricket. This ban was however lifted and he returned to the Pakistan national side the following year and almost immediately, got himself banned by the Pakistan Cricket Board or the PCB for fighting with team mate and fellow opening bowler Mohammad Asif during a training session.

He was selected to play for the Kolkata Knight Riders for the inaugural IPL but injuries blighted his season and he played only a handful of matches. Akhtar was so injury prone that he only managed to play a total of 46 tests and 163 One Day Internationals in his 12 year international career, taking a total of 425 wickets in all. Shoaib Akhtar, in spite of all his short comings, is truly a legend of the game and no matter what happens, cricket will always remember this flamboyant star.

Shoaib Akhter

 

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Friday 19 April 2013

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal Biography

Source (google.com.pk)
Kamran Akmal (born 13 January 1982 in Lahore) is a Pakistani cricketer who has played 38 Test matches and 88 ODIs for Pakistan. He is a quick-scoring batsman and a wicket-keeper, who has achieved four centuries and two fifties in 31 Test innings. However, his first century was vital – his 109 from the number eight position at Mohali, coming in with Pakistan in a lead of 39 against India in the first Test, ensured that the visitors could draw the match. His form against the touring English in 2005 made him one of the most important players in the team. Naturally, he is a batsman that plays lower down the order but has sometimes opened in both Test and One-day cricket. As an opener he has scored two back to back centuries in ODIs against England. Coming in lower down the order in Test matches, he played one memorable innings. He saved Pakistan from a score of 39/6, scoring a century, to a competitive 245 which helped Pakistan win the match and series. His batting was highly productive in early 2006 as he scored seven international hundreds within the space of 6 months. Since his tour of England in Summer 2006 however his batting form dwindled and steadily become worse. His wicket-keeping also worsened and dropped many catches on both the England tour and on a tour to South Africa in early 2007. Since then he did not score an international hundred until the Bangladeshi tour of Pakistan in 2008. Kamran Akmal was dropped for the Asia Cup 2008 as a result of his poor batting form and very poor keeping. He was replaced by Sarfraz Ahmed who has performed very well the domestic level. Kamran was named in the 30 man probable squad for the 2008 ICC Champions Trophy. On 12 November 2008, Akmal hit two consecutive 6s in the last over. As a result Pakistan won the first ODI in Abu Dhabi against West Indies. Akmal was also signed on to the Rajasthan Royals, and played in the inaugural season of the IPL. He played five matches in the tournament, as wicket-keeper and top-order batsman, including the final of the tournament against the Chennai Super Kings. He took two catches in the first innings, however he was run out for six runs during the Royal’s chase. The Royals went on to win the tournament after a thrilling finish.

Kamran Akmal

 

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Inzamam Ul Haq

Inzamam Ul Haq Biography

Source (google.com.pk)
Full name Inzamam-ul-Haq

Born March 3, 1970, Multan, Punjab

Current age 41 years 241 days

Major teams Pakistan, Asia XI, Faisalabad, ICC World XI, ICL Pakistan XI, Lahore Badshahs, Multan, National Bank of Pakistan, Rawalpindi, United Bank Limited, Yorkshire

Batting style Right-hand bat

Bowling style Slow left-arm orthodox


Profile
Inzamam-ul-Haq is a symbiosis of strength and subtlety. Power is no surprise, but sublime touch is remarkable for a man of his bulk. He loathes exercise and often looks a passenger in the field, but with a willow between his palms he is suddenly galvanised. He plays shots all round the wicket, is especially strong off his legs, and unleashes ferocious pulls and lofted drives. Imran Khan rates him the best batsman in the world against pace. Early on he is vulnerable playing across his front pad or groping outside off stump. He uses his feet well to the spinners, although this aggression can be his undoing. Inzi keeps a cool head in a crisis and has succeeded Javed Miandad as Pakistan's premier batsman, but his hapless running between wickets is legendary and most dangerous for his partners. There were no such problems against New Zealand at a boiling Lahore in 2001-02, when Inzamam belted 329, the second-highest Test score by a Pakistani and the tenth-highest by anyone. However, he was then dogged by poor form, scoring just 16 runs in Pakistan's ill-fated World Cup campaign in 2003. He was dropped from the team briefly, but then roared back to form, scoring a magnificent unbeaten 138 and guiding Pakistan to a thrilling one-wicket win against Bangladesh at Multan. He was rewarded with the captaincy of the team, and despite leading them to victory in the Test series in New Zealand, question-marks about his leadership qualities surfaced when Pakistan were beaten in both the Test series and the one-dayers against India. But the selectors persevered with him and this bore results when he took a team thin on bowling resources to India and drew the Test series with a rousing performance in the final Test, Inzamam's 100th. After scoring a magnificent 184, Inzamam led the team astutely on a tense final day and took Pakistan to victory. Since that day, Inzamam has gone from strength to strength as captain and premier batsman. By scoring a hundred against West Indies in June 2005, he kept up a remarkable record of matchwinning centuries, amongt the best of modern-day batsmen. A magnificent year ended with Inzamam leading his team to triumph over Ashes-winning England; personally the series was arguably his best ever. He never failed to make a fifty, scored twin centuries at Faisalabad for the first time, going past Miandad as Pakistan's leading century-maker and joining him as only the second Pakistani with 8000 Test runs. As captain, he never looked more a leader, uniting a young, inexperienced team and turning them, once again, into a force to matter globally. The turn of the year brought contemplation; he missed the Test victory over India at Karachi with a persistent back injury. The subsequent ODI thrashing also raised concerns about Inzamam as ODI captain, none of which were entirely wiped away during ODI and Test wins in Sri Lanka. Pakistan were then beaten comprehensively in the Test series in England though all was forgotten - including Inzamam's own poor form - by events at The Oval. There, Inzamam, astonishingly for a man perceived as so insouciant, became the most controversial figure in cricket for a week, leading his side off the field in protest at charges of ball tampering made by umpires Billy Doctrove and Darrell Hair. They refused to come out at first, then delayed the start before eventually forfeiting the Test, the first time in the history of the game. In Pakistan, he became a national hero, saviour of a country's pride and honour. He was banned for four ODIs and returned to lead the side to a series-win over West Indies followed by a disappointing Test series in South Africa, and then quit the one-day game after Pakistan were eliminated from the World Cup at the first hurdle, an event overshadowed by the death of Bob Woolmer. Even though he expressed his desire to be part of the Test team, Inzamam was not offered a central contract in July and, according to a few, might signal the end of his illustrious international career.

He, however, made that decision himself after signing up for the Indian Cricket League and faced a life-time ban from PCB. He later quit the ICL and made himself available for selection. The second Test against South Africa in Lahore was his farewell game. He fell just two short of Javed Miandad's record for the highest Test aggregate by a Pakistan batsman and 60 short of a career average of 50.

Inzamam Ul Haq

 

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Shahid Afridi

Shahid Afridi Biography

Source (google.com.pk)
Shahid Afridi is a professional cricket player, who was born on March 1, 1980 in Khyber Agency, Pakistan. His parents are of the Afridi tribe in Kohat; he is married to Nadia and has two daughters, Aqsa and Ansha.


Nicknamed ‘Boom Boom Afridi’ for his aggressive batting style, Shahid Afridi is a brilliant all-rounder, as he is also a right-arm leg-spin or medium-paced bowler. In October 1998, he made his Test debut for the Pakistan team against Australia and became a reliable member of his side. Shahid Afridi scored five Test centuries in his career, as of the year 2008; three times against India (1999 and twice in 2006) and twice against the West Indies (2002 and 2005).


His first appearance in an One Day International (ODI) came on October 2, 1996 at Nairobi in a match played against the Kenya cricket team. He rose to become an indispensable member of the Pakistani ODI squad with his remarkable performances since 1996. By making the fastest hundred runs (included six boundaries and eleven 6’s) of 37 balls in an ODI match against Sri Lanka, Shahid Afridi beat the record of Sanath Jayasuriya, a famous Sri Lankan cricketer, on October 4, 1996. He was just 16 years, when he performed this feat and was the youngest player to have achieved such an accomplishment. With Brian Lara, he shares a joint record for scoring the third fastest ODI century out of 45 balls against India in April 2005. By making four of the top eight fastest ODI half centuries, Shahid Afridi has made a mark for himself in the history of ODI cricket. In 2007, he scored 32 runs (including four consecutive sixes) off six balls against Sri Lanka at Abu Dhabi. The over was bowled by Malinga Bandara which is considered to the second most expensive over in the ODI history.


In March 2005, his Test performance with the bat and the ball played a key role in Pakistan’s encounter against India. Shahid Afridi made 50 runs out of 26 balls and walked away with three wickets in the second innings of a Test match claiming the victory for his team and brought the series to a draw. In January 2006, he smashed four consecutive sixes against Harbhajan Singh’s bowling in a Test match against India. On achieving a combination of 5000 runs and 200 wickets, Shahid Afridi is the third player (after Sanath Jayasuriya and Jacques Kallis, a South African cricketer) to accomplish such a feat in the ODI history.



For his commendable performances as a bowler of the Pakistan team in the international 2007 Twenty20, Shahid Afridi earned the Man of the Series award.


He represented the Deccan Chargers (DC) team under the captaincy of VVS Laxman, an Indian cricketer, in the Indian Premier League (IPL) of 2008. His sign-in price was $675,000 and played thirty matches for the DC team. Shahid Afridi scored 367 runs, which included 32 boundaries and 21 sixes with a strike rate of 171.49. By taking 35 wickets, the bowling average of Shahid Afridi was 20.05 at an economy rate of 6.81.

Shahid Afridi

 

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