Veteran batter Fawad Alam has decided to part ways with Pakistan Cricket and play his trade in the West. A year after playing his last Test for the country, the 36-year-old will now move to the United States of America where he will turn up as a ‘local’ player for the Chicago Kingsmen in Minor League Cricket T20. Fawad will join the likes of Saif Badar, Sami Aslam, Hammad Azam and Mohammad Mohsin who left Pakistan to try out their luck in the US.
Fawad leaves Pakistan cricket as a veteran of 201 First-class and 203 List-A matches with 14, 526 and 6,577 runs, respectively. However, his international career has been a strange but interesting story. His presence in the white-ball set-up was sporadic after making his ODI debut against Sri Lanka in 2007. A couple of years later, he made headlines for his maiden Test hundred on debut, against Sri Lanka in Colombo. But after getting dropped from a couple of Tests, he made a comeback 11 years, against England. But he found his rhythm against New Zealand in the Boxing Day Test with a patient 102-run knock under testing conditions. He continued his purple patch with tons against South Africa, West Indies and Zimbabwe.
Fawad’s unorthodox way of playing his game wasn’t effective against Australia, scoring 33 in 4 innings. Later in 2022, he was dropped after failing in a Test against Sri Lanka in July. Fawad was also a part of Pakistan’s 2009 T20 World Cup winning squad but could only play 11 more games after winning the world title. So, far, he played 19 Tests, 38 ODIs and 24 T20Is for Pakistan with 5 Test centuries and only ODI century against Sri Lanka in the 2014 Asia Cup.
The sad part for Fawad was not being able to gain his place back in the side despite scoring runs in plenty in the domestic tournament, the Qaid-e-Azam trophy. His non-selection was reportedly influenced by his unconventional way of playing which had the media and former players divided on opinion.
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