Rashid Latif - The Best ever Wicket-Keeper Pakistan has Ever Produced

Rashid Latif is born on 14 October 1968 in Karachi. A cricket coach and former cricketer who played for the Pakistan national cricket team in Tests and One Day Internationals from 1992 to 2003 as a right-handed wicket-keeper batsman. He also served as the captain of the Pakistan team in 2003, leading the country in 6 Tests and 25 one-day matches.

He took 5 dismissals against New Zealand in a World Cup match at Lahore. In those days, it was considered a rare performance to take five dismissals in an ODI inning.  He was a steady keeper and a handy lower-order batsman. Rashid Latif Took the catch of Craig Spearman off Aqib Bowling, Nathan Astle off Waqar’s Bowling, Chris Cairns off Aamir Sohail bowling, Shane Thomson of Waqar Younis Bowling, and Stephen Fleming Stumped off Salim Malik Bowling. Pakistan won the match by 46 runs. This was the last game of the league matches. Pakistan won 4 matches in five games.

New Zealand won the toss and elected to field first. Pakistan scored 281/5 in 50 overs, Aamir Sohail 50, Saeed Anwar 62, Ijaz Ahmad 26, Inzi 39, Salim Malik 55* and Wasim Akram 28*

In reply, New Zealand bowled out 235 runs in 47.3 overs, as Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Aaqib Javed, and Salim Malik took 2 wickets a piece, while Aamir Sohail took 1 wicket. Salim Malik was declared man of the match by his all-around performance of 55* runs and 2 for 41.

In education, Rashid Latif earned a BSc in computer systems engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology with Saeed Anwar.

Wasim Akram the King of Swing Bowling

In 1994, along with Waqar Younis, he bowled out to Sri Lanka for just 71 runs in the 3rd Test match at Kandy. He took 4 for 32 and 1 of 70 to deliver the series wins of 2-0. As that game illustrated, he could be more than a useful batsman.

Jimmy Maher Career, Profile, Stats, Info and Much More

  

Full Name: James Patrick Maher

Born: 27 February 1974 Innisfail Queensland,

Nickname – Mahbo

National Side: - 1998-2003 Australia

ODI Shirt No: - 46

Height – 6ft (182cm)

Batting – Left-Handed batsman

Bowling – Right-handed Medium Fast

ODI Debut – 14 Jan 1998 vs New Zealand

Last ODI – 9 November 2003 vs New Zealand

Queensland Pura Cup Captain: - 2002/03 and 2007/08

Former Australian cricketer Jimmy Maher is born on 27 February 1974 in Queensland. An attractive left-hander with a thumbing cover-drive, Jimmy Maher played two one-dayers for Australia in 1997-98.

After having played a couple of ODIs, it seemed like Maher's international career was done. However, relentless consistency in the domestic circuit saw him make a return in 2002. It was due to a sensational Pura Cup season in 2001-02, where he became the first ever batsman to aggregate over 1000 runs in a season, that Maher was able to storm his way back into the national side.

Apart from being a gifted left-handed batsman who oozed class in his strokeplay, he was a utility medium pacer and could also keep wickets when needed. Like most left-handers, Maher's signature stroke was the cover drive which he unfurled with absolute class.

Maher's bubbly personality made him a popular member of dressing rooms from the Gabba to the Gower. He took a while to get the hang of English pitches, but magnificent footwork and remarkable shot-selection won through in the end.

In the 2001/02 season, he continued that form back in Australia, slamming 174 against Victoria and 209 against South Australia on his way to becoming the first batsman to reach 1000 Pura Cup runs.

It was in the same year that Australia was determined to start the process of transition and had dropped the Waugh brothers from the ODI squad. Ricky Ponting was appointed captain and there were a plethora of changes in the squad.

As the selectors looked for youth, they also wanted experience, even if it was at the domestic circuit alone and that's where Maher came in. The tour to South Africa was his comeback series and although he played a couple of impact knocks, the consistency never really came. 

Jimmy Maher back into the one-day reckoning, when he announced his return with 95 in the second match against South Africa at Centurion in 2002 and followed that up with a vital 43 not out to secure a tie at Potchefstroom.

A series of handy one-day performances won him a place as the spare batsman (and the stand-in wicketkeeper) in the 2003 World Cup-winning squad, although he appeared in only two matches. Therefore, the tours to West Indies and India followed but his 26-match one-day journey ended when Brad Haddin assumed the backup gloveman’s role. 

Replacing Stuart Law as Queensland's captain, Jimmy Maher lost five domestic finals in a row before sealing his first win as a leader with the 2005-06 Pura Cup. He marked the occasion with a career-high 223 and then let his batsmen race to an unstoppable 6 declared for 900, dedicating the victory to victims of a fierce cyclone in north Queensland the previous week. Maher's Man-of-the-Match performance guided him to a personal haul of 906 runs at 53.29 in the competition and showed that at the age of 32 he had plenty of energy left. 

The run-scoring leader in the interstate one-day tournament, Maher's stand-out limited-overs moment came with a national-record 187 from 129 deliveries against Western Australia in 2003-04 as the Bulls charged to an unmatched 405 in 50 overs.

In February 2007, he also values highly his 108 runs in 133 balls in the limited-overs final of 2006-07, which set up Queensland's victory in the Ford Rangers Cup Final against the Victorian Bushrangers at the MCG. The Queensland Bulls went on to win the match by 21 runs. It was the third time that he had scored a century for Queensland in an Ondday domestic final.

On 11 February 2007 Maher was criticized by South Australian cricket captain Darren Lehmann for not declaring to make a game of their Pura Cup match at the Gabba. Lehmann said he thought he was playing Tasmania referring to Tasmania's reliance on the final day run chases.

Jimmy Maher caused controversy in 1995 following Queensland's Sheffield Shield win over South Australia, when he said during a television interview "I'm as full as a coon's Valiant". Indigenous Australians criticized Maher for his statement and its racial undertone. Maher later publicly apologized for the statement.

A year later, following a subdued season, he stood down with 9,933 first-class runs for the Bulls, second behind Martin Love, and headed for the Indian Cricket League.

 

Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Saleem Jaffer in 1987 World Cup.

Great Imran Khan, with his bowling Army, Wasim Akram and Saleem Jaffer in World Cup 1987. 

 

Aamir Sohail Profile - Cricket Career

Muhammad Aamir Sohail is born on 14 September 1966. He is a Pakistani cricket commentator and former cricketer. In a playing career that spanned eighteen years, Sohail played in 195 first-class and 261 List A Limited Overs matches, including 47 Test matches and 156 One Day Internationals for Pakistan. Aamir Sohail was a combative left-hand opener and a predominantly back-foot player whose forte was improvisation. He loved to attack, and almost found it impossible to control his aggression.

Aamir Sohail made his first-class debut in 1983, as a left-handed opening batsman and occasional left-arm spin bowler. An aggressive batsman, Sohail first appeared for the national team in 1990 one-day international against Sri Lanka and enjoyed a successful international career. He was an important member of the team that won the 1992 Cricket World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Aamir Sohail captained Pakistan in six Tests in 1998, becoming the first Pakistani captain to defeat South Africa in a Test Match. He led Pakistan through 22 One Day Internationals from 1996 to 1998, winning nine and averaging 41.5 with the bat. He also acted as acting captain of Pakistan against the West Indies in Sharjah.

Sohail played a big role in Pakistan's World Cup triumph in 1992, famously telling Ian Botham that he might want to send his mother-in-law into bat, referring to Botham's statement that he wouldn't send even his mother-in-law to Pakistan after Botham was controversially given out for zero in the final.

In the 1996 World Cup Quarter Final in Bangalore against arch-rival India, Sohail was captaining his side in pursuit of a relatively large target of 287 in 49 overs. With opening partner Saeed Anwar, he got Pakistan off to a flying start. With the score at 109 for one and Saeed Anwar (48) back in the pavilion, Aamir Sohail smashed a delivery from Indian seamer Venkatesh Prasad through the covers for four. Both players exchanged words, and Sohail unnecessarily pointed his finger aggressively at Prasad. The next delivery clean-bowled him and triggered a batting collapse which ultimately lost the game and eliminated Pakistan from the competition.

Aamir Sohail was at the heart of the match-fixing scandal that rocked cricket in the 1990s: as captain of the national team, his whistle-blowing may have negatively affected his international career and he left the international scene early to work in broadcasting, where he might have tried harder to suppress his personal prejudices.

After retiring from cricket in 2001, Sohail became chief selector for the national team, his tenure ending in January 2004 when he was replaced by former national team wicketkeeper Wasim Bari. He continues to work as a cricket broadcaster. On 4 February 2014, he was again appointed as Chief Selector of the national team for the second time.

 

Ian Healy 113 Not Out vs New Zealand at Perth Nov 1993

In 1993-94 seasons, Australian wicketkeeper-batsman Ian scored a brilliant hundred against New Zealand at Perth in Nov 1993. At one stage Australian team was struggling at 6 for 198 when Ian Healy came and played a genuine innings on the bouncy track of Perth. This was Ian Healy's 2^nd Test hundred and first against New Zealand. He remains unbeaten at 113 off 181 balls, 262 mins, with the help of 11 fours. Australian innings were ended up 398. The match was drawn, but he realized the Australian selectors to keep faith in his batting. The player in the match was declared Andrew Jones, who scored 143 and 45.

Pankaj Singh: Rajasthan’s lone Ranger

 It had been a day of mixed fortunes for Pankaj Singh. At the very special moment, perhaps, when the national selectors were discussing his name for the Australia tour, Pankaj was busy battling it out in Jhalawar, trying to secure for Rajasthan their first-ever victory over Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy. Pankaj couldn’t save Rajasthan from losing by two runs — but he did get the selectors’ call. It was a reward for his strong domestic performances over the past year and, if it surprised most people, Pankaj himself was confident that the national call was around the corner. In a way he was expecting this call, especially after my five-wicket haul against a side like Mumbai in the first innings at Jnalawar,” an excited Pankaj, Singh, he is just 22, said.

His height — he stands 6’5” in his socks — and broad shoulders have been his principal assets, along with his work ethic, in purchasing wickets on the flat, unresponsive Indian pitches for the past two years. Venkatesh Prasad, the Indian bowling coach, felt the same during the bowlers’ camp held in Mysore In June, before the England tour, where Pankaj was called at the last minute based on his performances during the previous Ranji season. He's a tall and hardworking fast bowler with a good outswinger.

He was Prasad’s assessment at the time. Pankaj, who took the new ball during the India-A tour to Kenya and then against South Africa at home, runs in hard and delivers with a side-on action. His stock ball is the outswinger that leaves the right-hander at a decent pace, something his colleague Ishant Sharma can make use of in his secret delivery is the disguised incutter that he utilizes intelligently.

The outswinger came naturally, but my experience during the A tours this year helped me bring more variety and the inswinger is a work in progress. His relative youth would raise expectations of greater pace but for now, Pankaj is happy consistently hitting the 135kmph mark, so as long as he can pitch it on the right spot.  If he can hit the back-of-the-length and short-of-good-length consistently, that’s the priority,” Prasad says.

In essence, he is asking Pankaj to do what he has been doing for Rajasthan for the last two seasons. Pankaj understands that well and is not fretting over the lack of pace. A good line-and-length is what you want to focus on and as for pace, he will definitely increase it with time.” KP Bhaskar said, in his first season as Rajasthan's coach.

Also, his coach believes Pankaj can bridge the gap between domestic and international cricket. “Line and length are his biggest strong points. Also adding that the reason Pankaj is a tall all-out fast bowler is that he has to shoulder the burden of the fast bowling attack almost single-hand. Prasad says India has never been a nation of fast bowlers in any case and it would be beneficial if Pankaj can focus on consistency. With the Ishant Sharma has bagged his maiden five-for, and Zaheer Khan and RP Singh returning to the fold. So, therefore Pankaj Singh will most likely be an understudy to the seniors.

If at all he gets a chance, it will be during the two practice games ahead of the first Test on Boxing Day at the MCG. Pankaj's performances appear to have impressed Dilip Vengsarkar, the chairman of selectors, who met him for the first time during the 2006-07 Deodhar Trophy. Since then, Pankaj says, Vengsarkar has encouraged him to believe in himself. Work on your basics and concentrate on your strengths, he told me.

Pankaj’s trip to Mysore earlier this year saw him acquire a more positive mindset. We spoke a lot about mental toughness Pankaj recalls his conversations with Prasad and the other bowlers. The ideal tool apart from his height, broad shoulders, and strong work ethic, for that trip to Australia. Watch out for Tendulkar, to score heavily against Australia on what will be his last tour of the country. Labeling Tendulkar as the best batsman he has played against, Warne said in the Herald Sun: There is no doubt he will play one or two special innings in this Test series. Absolutely no doubt, he will play a couple of unbelievable breathtaking innings. I don't believe just because he is getting old, he is finished. Given the conditions, Melbourne, Sydney, or Perth. 

AB de Villiers reaches his maiden Test century, South Africa v England, 5th Test, Centurion

 

Andrew Symonds gears up for the semi-final against South Africa, St Lucia, April 23, 2007

 

1952 at Lucknow, Pakistan recorded maiden Test victory in only their 2nd ever Test match beating India by an inns and 43 runs.