On This Day: 13th July, 2009 - Fawad Alam makes a hundred on Test debut, finishing with 168

[Markhor]

Sometimes I wonder maybe I'm missing something and that so many captains, coaches and selectors from Misbah, Sarfraz, Whatmore, Waqar, Mickey to Inzamam can't all be wrong about Fawad Alam. There's so much international captaincy and coaching experience there. Maybe the technique won't stand scrutiny at international level.

Yet the guy has one of the best FC averages of all time, has scored 34 FC hundreds at an average of 56. We've given Asad Shafiq a free ride for 10 years and still he cannot keep his Test average above 40. Surely Fawad wouldn't been any worse ?

 

[Slog]

Sometimes I wonder maybe I'm missing something and that so many captains, coaches and selectors from Misbah, Sarfraz, Whatmore, Waqar, Mickey to Inzamam can't all be wrong about Fawad Alam. There's so much international captaincy and coaching experience there. Maybe the technique won't stand scrutiny at international level.

Yet the guy has one of the best FC averages of all time, has scored 34 FC hundreds at an average of 56. We've given Asad Shafiq a free ride for 10 years and still he cannot keep his Test average above 40. Surely Fawad wouldn't been any worse ?

That’s the thing. Early on he was tagged as a player not good enough for international cricket regardless of what he did. Which is unfair. When someone has been doing this for close to a decade then at some point you should swallow your pride and give the guy a chance. His career has already been wasted and his performances in past 2 seasons have not been as consistent as the 3-4 seasons prior so we may never know how he may have done at his peak.

This has been a consistent problem with Pakistani selectors.

Some players they deem as not being good enough because they don’t ‘look the part’ such as Abbas, Tanvir Ahmed, Zulfiqar Babar, Fawad etc and do not give them chances at all despite them breaking record after record in domestic. And they they eventually give them the deserved chance near end of their careers and they obviously have a short lived career where usually they still do okay.

On the other hand others are given the tag of being future stars and are given chances upon chances with little reward such as Shehzad, Maqsood, Umar etc.

It really is ridiculous

 

[MenInG]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OnThisDay?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OnThisDay</a> in 2009. Fawad Alam made a century on Test debut against Sri Lanka in Colombo. 11 years later - Fawad has only played 3 Test matches for Pakistan <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cricket?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Cricket</a> <a href="https://t.co/3ULiEGuJmj">pic.twitter.com/3ULiEGuJmj</a></p>— Saj Sadiq (@Saj_PakPassion) <a href="https://twitter.com/Saj_PakPassion/status/1282563692064845825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 13, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Titan24]

What I have observed is that sub continental teams avoid batsmen with unorthodox techniques. I dont think Steve Smith, Chanderpaul, Dean Elgar, Peter Handscomb, Greame Smith etc would have been easily accepted in sub continent. There might have been few with slightly different techniques but not many really unique kind of techniques of players playing international cricket for sub continental teams.

On the other hand there have been quite a few bowlers in sub continental teams with as unorthodox bowling style as one will see.

In my opinion if someone is scoring runs as heavily as Fawad was doing then he should be given oppurtunities at international level irrespective of the way he bats. Core objective of batsman is to make runs and survive on the wicket so he can do so, if someone with unorthodox technique is able to do regularly do that then he should be selected without a doubt. Fawad was definitely not treated well, not sure if there were attitude or temperamental issues with him which we dont know about as the way he has been treated after century on debut is pretty surprising.

 

[Slog]

PCB and Pak cricket are putting out a lot of videos commemorating this debut century and also giving attention to Fawad generally.

It all seems to point out that he is in line for a Test match finally but knowing Fawad Alam and his luck I have a sneaky feeling that at the last minute he won't be make the final eleven. And wouldn't that be the most Fawad Alam thing ever!

 

[Usman]

PCB and Pak cricket are putting out a lot of videos commemorating this debut century and also giving attention to Fawad generally.

It all seems to point out that he is in line for a Test match finally but knowing Fawad Alam and his luck I have a sneaky feeling that at the last minute he won't be make the final eleven. And wouldn't that be the most Fawad Alam thing ever!

I'm convinced he won't make the playing 11. I know Pakistani cricket and Misbah too well.

What a waste. What could have been had Fawad been given a fair chance. To think, the likes of Umer Akmal, Ahmed Shehzad, Nasser Jamshed and even to this day, Hafeez and Malik, have all been given chance after chance after chance. These are just some of the long list of abject failures who have been the mainstay of our team. In the meantime, we have Fawad's whole career has been wasted

The feeling of injustice really hurts.

 

[Thunderbolt14]

https://www.facebook.com/PakistanCricketBoard/posts/4235325473207419

PCB and Pak cricket are putting out a lot of videos commemorating this debut century and also giving attention to Fawad generally.

It all seems to point out that he is in line for a Test match finally but knowing Fawad Alam and his luck I have a sneaky feeling that at the last minute he won't be make the final eleven. And wouldn't that be the most Fawad Alam thing ever!

Media team is independent of the selection team/Misbah/coaching team. But yes I hope so.

 

[sweep_shot]

Fawad was wasted. He could've been a great asset.

 

[GreenKhan]

Fawad alam can stay play at the top level for another 4 years . He’s 34 , not been given a chance for 10 years and his domestics record speaks for itself.

Providing he is performing and not a liability for the team he can play for a good few years and offer stability and experience to the middle order.

It’s not to late for him and being aged 34 is hardly a time to write batsman’s obituary .

He deserves a fair run and should be given the full England series .

 

[MenInG]

What an amazing debut for Fawad and how he had to wait for so long to make things work for him.

 

[Usman]

What an amazing debut for Fawad and how he had to wait for so long to make things work for him.

Personally I cannot understand how someone of Fawad's quality is unable to make this truly substandard ODI team.

There is a reason why we go back to our older generation of cricketers including Fawad, Malik, Hafeez etc because for all their faults, they are also players who will at least once a series put their hand up and do something significant. Right now without these experienced hands, we are literally Barbar or bust.

 

[UzmanBeast]

Personally I cannot understand how someone of Fawad's quality is unable to make this truly substandard ODI team.

There is a reason why we go back to our older generation of cricketers including Fawad, Malik, Hafeez etc because for all their faults, they are also players who will at least once a series put their hand up and do something significant. Right now without these experienced hands, we are literally Barbar or bust.

Whilst I agree that experience matters, Fawad is just not good enough for the demands of the modern game.

We need to try different combinations, particularly the openers.

Our middle order has always been shaky, our top order used to give us good partnerships to succeed.

Fakhar merits a spot on the team, but Imam goes missing whenever the ball swings or when there's pressure. He needs to be replaced.

 

[Shoaibbtt]

Personally I cannot understand how someone of Fawad's quality is unable to make this truly substandard ODI team.

There is a reason why we go back to our older generation of cricketers including Fawad, Malik, Hafeez etc because for all their faults, they are also players who will at least once a series put their hand up and do something significant. Right now without these experienced hands, we are literally Barbar or bust.

Although I agree with you and I’m the biggest Fawad supporter on here. What we need is to be realistic as to whether he fits our plans or not and unfortunately Fawad doesn’t fit at the moment in my view.

He’s a great test player and should remain that way for the next 7 years.

 

[Saj]

Nearly 11 years gap between his 3rd Test and 4th Test match - absolutely disgraceful.

Quite a few individuals who share the blame for that.

 

[Shoaibbtt]

Nearly 11 years gap between his 3rd Test and 4th Test match - absolutely disgraceful.

Quite a few individuals who share the blame for that.

I blame the previous coaches and most notably that Haroon Rashid.