South Asian Heritage - Pakistan
Wed 12 Aug 2020
As part of South Asian Heritage Month, Leicestershire County Cricket Club is taking a look back at some of the club's past players. This weeks edition looks at previous players from Pakistan who have donned the running fox.
Shahid Afridi
The 2001 season was a bittersweet one for Leicestershire. A Lord’s final and a fantastic one day league season that saw them top until the final round. It was also Jack Birkenshaw’s final season in charge and two runner’s up positions were a sad disappointment. The explosive batting of Shahid Afridi allowed Leicestershire to achieve this. His innings of 95 against Lancashire brought semi final victory with 20 overs to spare. His top championship score of 164 took only 150 minutes and included twenty two 4’s and six 6’s. He played in only half the one day league matches, but 276 runs at a scoring rate of over 2 runs a ball give an idea of his hitting ability. And of course he bowled leg breaks and googlies, and 5 for 84 against Essex was his best return.
Mansoor Amjad
Mansoor played three matches in 2006 and returned to spend all of 2007 with the county. He scored one century, 105 not out against Glamorgan, but his leg breaks did not bring the rewards he would have liked and did not return in 2008. He played a single one day international and a single International T20 match for Pakistan. In recent years he has successfully played League cricket in Lancashire as a Professional with Colne and Rishton.
Abdul Razzaq
Abdul Razzaq was very much a T20 specialist, playing in the winning T20 team of 2011, the T20 champions league in India and also the following season. He played for 13 ‘domestic’ T20 teams, including 4 in England. He was a hard hitting batsman completing four scores of 60 or more, with his 62 on debut against Lancashire including five 6’s. A solid 33 in the T20 final in 2011 helped ensure victory, as did his reliable bowling. He also played 46 Test matches for Pakistan, scoring 1946 runs and taking 100 wickets.
Mohammad Abbas
On his day, Mo was a very quick bowler. Those present at Grace Road on 19th September 2018 will never forget his one man destruction of Durham. Bowling from the car park end with storm Ali behind him he had figures of five for 23 and five for 29 Durham were dismissed for 61 and 66 and Leicestershire were home by an innings inside two days. This also brought him to 50 wickets for the season, 73 if you include the Test matches he played for Pakistan at an average of just under 18. He returned in 2019, and was not quite so successful. Mo is currently touring with the Pakistan team.
Riaz ur Rehman Bhatti
One of the saddest stories I have uncovered whilst writing this short sketches, concerns Ray Rehman (as was known). Ray was a very promising batsman.
He was travelling back from Manchester to play for Rootes against Renold Chains. Listening to the lunchtime scores on his car radio, he drove his car into the back of a slow moving lorry carrying gypsum. The double tragedy was that he would have survived if he had been wearing a seatbelt (not compulsory in 1966) and he was a learner driver, so should not have been driving on the motorway.
His final innings for the 2nd XI was an unbeaten 196 scored 10 days before his death, and earlier on in June he scored a hundred against Warwickshire 2nds at better than a run a minute and he had also made his county debut against Oxford University. He had previously played first class cricket in Lahore and Rawalpindi.
Richard Holdridge - Club Historian
