Azhar Ali To Retire From Test Cricket After England Series

Veteran Pakistan top-order batsman Azhar Ali will retire from worldwide cricket after the third and remaining Test in opposition to England in Karachi beginning Saturday. The 37-year-old former captain was dropped from the second Test — the second time in six months that he was neglected of the workforce — signalling the top was close to. Azhar will possible exchange injured opener Imam-ul-Haq for the Karachi Test and can be hoping to bow out on a excessive.

“Everything must come to an end, so on a good note I feel — and my heart and mind understands — that this is the right time to decide that the Karachi Test will be my last for Pakistan,” an emotional Azhar informed a press convention.

“It was an honour to not only play for Pakistan, but also captain the country, and I am going with fond memories,” added Azhar, who with 7,097 runs from 96 matches is Pakistan’s fifth-highest Test scorer.

The writing seems to have been on the wall for Azhar through the residence collection in opposition to England, which Pakistan are dropping 2-0.

He scored 27 and 40 within the first Test in Rawalpindi however the method of his dismissal — caught off pacer Ollie Robinson to leg slip the place a fielder was positioned — was criticised.

He was neglected of the second Test, having likewise been dropped from the second Test in opposition to Sri Lanka at Galle in July this 12 months.

Azhar denied he had been pushed out.

“It’s solely my decision,” he mentioned. “No one told me to do this.”

Azhar’s Test profession — starting at Lord’s in 2010 — was marked by Pakistan’s isolation from worldwide cricket, which disadvantaged him of enjoying any of his first 75 matches on residence grounds.

Pakistan have been pressured to play their matches at impartial venues within the aftermath of terror assaults on the Sri Lankan workforce bus in Lahore in 2009.

When Test cricket returned to Pakistan in December 2019, Azhar hit a century within the second Test in opposition to Sri Lanka in Karachi.

“It was massive to play at home and score that hundred,” mentioned Azhar, who scored 19 Test centuries.

“I genuinely thought a few years back that I would not be able to play a Test at home.”

Azhar additionally performed 53 ODIs for Pakistan, 31 as captain, and led the nation in 9 Tests.

He described his 302 not out in opposition to the West Indies in Dubai six years in the past as one among his greatest achievements — the primary and solely triple hundred in a day-night Test.

He was additionally a part of Pakistan’s triumphant Champions Trophy squad in 2017.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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