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[VIDEO] How will Umar Gul be remembered?

Major

Major

T20I Captain
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The guy was once known as the best death over bowler ever for his reverse swing.

-----Wickets AVG
Tests 163 34
odi 179 29
T20Is 85 16
 
personally i will remember him more for his heroics with the bat against SA,had some good performances with the ball but never fully reached his full potential
 
As an underachiever

2009 was his greatest achievement where he was outstanding but never really did it in tests like he shouldve

Shouldve had 250 wickets in both formats
 
Gul had utility as a limited overs bowler but he bowled too short a length to be a top class Test bowler and wasn't as effective with the new ball.

Had a golden spell between 2009-2012, helping us win a T20 World Cup and reach the semi-finals in two others with his death bowling, reverse swing and yorkers being his strengths.

However with two new balls in ODIs, injuries piling up and other fast bowling options coming through - he fell by the wayside.

Overall, a serviceable bowler. Didn't disgrace himself as a Pakistani player, but not elite level.
 
Markhor said:
Gul had utility as a limited overs bowler but he bowled too short a length to be a top class Test bowler and wasn't as effective with the new ball.

Had a golden spell between 2009-2012, helping us win a T20 World Cup and reach the semi-finals in two others with his death bowling, reverse swing and yorkers being his strengths.

However with two new balls in ODIs, injuries piling up and other fast bowling options coming through - he fell by the wayside.

Overall, a serviceable bowler. Didn't disgrace himself as a Pakistani player, but not elite level.
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another interesting thing i have realized that Afridi is credited more then GUL was for his T20 heroics.
 
I often saw his marriage as his downfall in cricket.

I think his priorities shifted after getting wedded
 
I think he was always a good third seamer option. He was good as the third or fourth seamer when wasim, waqar, shoaib were around. He was always under the shadow of the more illustrious companions. As a young debutant under waqar and shoaib and later under shoaib and asif.

He never graduated to the first tier of Pakistani fast bowling greatness. When we lost the best to retirements, injuries, bans, etc, etc, he was thrust into the attack leader role but more of than not he struggled with it.

Probably a rung or two above M Sami but mediocre at best.
 
2009 T20 WC and his spell to Lara where he got him and his toe crusher to Sarwan to send him back hanging onto his teammates.
 
I think his spell vs SA in the T20 SF and against NZ earlier in the competition were the highlights of his career.

Personally I also remember his spells vs England in the ODIs in london in 2010 very fondly.

In limited over cricket, he had exceptional ability to reverse swing the ball. It's crazy to think that someone is able to reverse swing the ball in a T20 game - however, on his day that's what Gul was able to do and that too with deadly accuracy.

However, I believe following his purple patch he was plagued with inconsistency and the two balls in ODI rules certainly did not help his cause since he was heavily reliant on reverse swing.

I think - like many other on this thread - Gul did under achieve, however he did give us many memorable moments such as the Ines mentioned above and an honourable mention to his knock in the T20 World Cup vs South Africa
 
Very underrated bowler in LOI's whose numbers are short changed atleast in ODIs with the new ball rule and the injuries. Also he flourished when he had support in bowling partners and struggled when he didn't. No surprise his best phase was when Aamir and Ajmal arrived on the scene.

Must also say during his prime in ODIs, Pakistan never really had the batting to put scoreboard pressure on the opposition.

A fantastic second or third bowler. Wasn't an attack spearhead IMO. I'd put him on the same level as an Aaquib Javed who is glorified a bit more due to his performances against India and playing alongside much better team mates.
 
Also I forgot to put this in, at one time he was one of if it the best bowler in T20s in the world.
 
Justcrazy said:
Big underachiever.
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On the contrary- I think he was a big over-achiever

Didn't have great pace, never a great swing bowler, never very accurate, but still somehow became the leader of the pace attack for a 3-4 year stretch

he was extremely skilled- used the slower ball and yorker perfectly at his prime. He's one of the best T20 bowlers we've seen
 
Underachiever he had good skills and good bowling partners as well but the main reason for his down fall was that ge could never think out of the box when under pressure. He was either too short or either too full.
 
Just like Sami someone with great potential but who didn't have the bowling mind to succeed in the longer format of the game or against better batsmen.

Pakistan has been blessed with a lot of talented bowlers, only a few of them made into a great one. Hopefully Amir will become a great one instead of falling in the talented only category
 
Great t20 bowler

nice memories from 2007 to 2011 when the rest of the clowns were getting banned for doping, fixing, fighting etc etc
 
Very good LOI bowler, but injuries and failure to adapt his game to longer version of game means he under achieved a lot. Will be remember as a decent bowler at best. Excellent death bowler in LOI games in his prime though.
 
Our true match winning fast bowler after the two W's. I know people will name asif and amir here but they only have a handful of performances and were much stylish than gul which made them look way better than they actually were. Amir before his CT performance couldn't deliver for 1.5 years yet i don't see anybody calling him an underachiever

Gul had to play in a weak attack for most of his playing career (his partners were even more expensive than he was like danish kaneria, sami, rana naveed etc). Also had to face lot of injuries since his county stint in 2006 which is why he would sometimes go missing in full series and would have no return
 
2007-2011 were the years were he took his game to a greater level (now that level wasn't ATG or tier 1 level internationally, which is another debate altogether) however, with injuries, the 2 new ball rule and his own drive going downhill he was never the same bowler again.

His services although are commendable to say the least.
 
He was very good in his peak but carried on playing for way too long. Was fantastic in World T20 2009
 
Primarily for his T20 WC heroics in 2007 and 2009. He was pretty much the yorker specialist during that period.

Will also remember those lusty blows over mid-wicket and his match-winning 6-fer against England in the 2010 ODI series
 
He never moved beyond a certain level.

His batting had potential. Decent striker , but never worked on it.
 
Was really good (especially in LOIs) until that beating he got from Sehwag in Mohali. Regressed badly after that due to lost confidence and injuries.
 
GOAT T/20 bowler.
Almost a Pakistani great in ODIs and a very exciting package overall.
 
As the hero of the '09 T20 WC.

A T20I ATG.Will also never forget his spell at the Oval in 2010 and the innings he played against SA in the 2012 WT20.
 
Had a purple spell during the intial few years of T20. But for me he was just a rigid, mechanical run of the mill bowler, not biult strongly hence far too many injuries.
 
Why doesn't he play much T20 league cricket these days? Sami and sohail tanvir are still getting contracts
 
I will remember him as the spearhead of the attack after the Amir-Asif ban. Up until 2012, when he started getting injured and the emergence of Junaid and Irfan, he was a main bowler alongside Ajmal.

He was a brilliant bowler in ICC events. He performed exceptionally well in the t20 WCs and did pretty well in the 2011 WC, besides the SF against India.

He was the ideal death bowler and a go-to option at times. I remember him best for his match saving 6 wicket hauls against England in 2010 and his batting heroics against SA.

His batting had potential and whenever he came in I expected at least a six or two. He had mad power in his arms to swing the bat a long way.

Sadly though, he declined. His pace fell, and he bolwed short too often. He lost his biggest weapon.. the yorker!
 
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Oh can never forget his two five wicket hauls in t20s.. both being 5 wickets for 6 runs. Those are the figures he should be remembered for. If he ever writes an autobiography, it should be titled Umar Gul, 5 for 6.
 
hafizexpress said:
Oh can never forget his two five wicket hauls in t20s.. both being 5 wickets for 6 runs. Those are the figures he should be remembered for. If he ever writes an autobiography, it should be titled Umar Gul, 5 for 6.
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This was when vettori and co came out and said the ball was tempered with?
 
Pakistani great for sure and arguably one of our greatest ODI/T20 bowlers ever.

Not interested in stats or excuses.

He single handedly led to us to glory in 2009 and got us to the final in 2007.

Played a crucial role in the 2011 WC despite his poor show against India.

Big player for the big occasion and good reverse swing and bowl yorkers at will.

Did not have longevity but remains a legend IMO>
 
Good bowler, if there was any reverse swing he went into a league of his own.

The 2 new ball rule really hurt bowlers like Gul. Still, can't believe the ICC has stuck with this rule.
 
Wish umar gul was able to have success in psl aswell
 
The t20 spells in the 2009 t20 World Cup was other worldly.

He is the best t20 fast bowler of his era.
 
He failed at the biggest occasion in 2011 at Mohali. His bowling figures made the difference between victory and defeat for Pakistan
 
Stump shattering death overs reverse swinging yorkers expert.

Also for his jawline lol
 
A T20 ATG at his peak the best exponent of the yorker in white ball cricket.

From the 2007-2011 period Gul was a world class bowler in ODIs and T20s, could generate reverse swing at will and was pinpoint accurate at the death. Was a beacon of fast bowling in white ball cricket anyway during a time where others were beset with injuries and controversies. After 2011 the 2 new ball rule change really limited his effectiveness as Gul was never a great new ball bowler and preferred the old ball like many of our seamers post the 2 Ws. Also knee injuries started to pile up reducing his pace and effectiveness.

In Tests Gul never seemed to get the length right always bowled too short and couldnt swing it conventionally.

Will always remember him in WT20 2009 part of that awesome bowling attack. A great servant to Pakistan Cricket and a good human being by all accounts.
 
Underachiever, but I'll always remember him for not being involved in any controversy throughout his career which is an anomaly as far as fast bowlers in Pakistan are concerned.

He was at his peak from T20 WC in 2007 till maybe 2012. He was simply awesome on his day, never seen a bowler who can bowl 6 yorkers in an over. Wish he didn't had all those injuries & could've gotten around 250 wickets in both formats.
 
Stewie said:
I think he was always a good third seamer option. He was good as the third or fourth seamer when wasim, waqar, shoaib were around. He was always under the shadow of the more illustrious companions. As a young debutant under waqar and shoaib and later under shoaib and asif.
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He was a great option as a third seamer but he actually never played with Wasim & Waqar. He was given chance in both formats after the 03 WC debacle.

Stewie said:
Probably a rung or two above M Sami but mediocre at best.
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It's extremely harsh to call him mediocre & he was miles ahead as a bowler as compared to Sami.
 
One of my favorite wickets by Gul was when he took Brian Lara out for a duck with a brutal swinging yorker.
 
Decent bowler but not a leader of the attack. I think he was quite unlucky as injuries / idiocy / bans / to others meant he was often expected to be our lead or strike bowler when actually he would have been better as 3rd seamer.

Akhtar - Asif - Gul would have been a fantastic attack but it was rarely given the opportunity for various reasons.

Similarly Amir - Asif - Gul would have been great too.

We never really got to see AAG v1 or v2 :-(
 
Solid third bowler in both LOIs and Test problem is too often he was asked to lead the attack which was outside his talents.
 
Pakistan's 3rd greatest all format bowler of this millennium, only behind Asif and Amir. But unlike Asif and Amir, he had a better career in terms of no controversy and scandals.
 
Great memories.

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An ATG in the T20 format (yes, it's been long enough).
 
ATG in T20 , was the best in early years of T20I

And a very good ODI and good test bolwer.

A bit of underachiever , overall

Unlike many others, retired with dignity , when the time was right .

Unlike many other fast bowlers in recent h/o Pak cricket, a very decent person, never involved in any controversy, always spoke well.

Will make a very good bowling coach .

And, wish him all the best in his retired ( from active cricket ) life.
 
I don’t know how he’s to blame and ‘made the difference’ when they dropped 5 catches and most of the batting lineup failed. Yes he had a bad day when Sehwag got going at the start but Pakistan still restricted India to 260 which was definitely chaseable. Sachins innings made the difference and that was thanks to Pakistani fielders and a controversial DRS. If anyone is to blame it should be Misbah who dropped sachin first at midwicket and then played a strange innings at one point he was 12 of 33 balls which put pressure on a fragile batting line up where most got out when trying to increase the run rate which Misbah had unnecessarily shot up. We know he could hit and his strength was spinners but Misbah was the biggest culprit that day and after 2007 t20 World Cup he basically ended Pakistan’s journey in a World Cup they could’ve easily won.
 
coming in and wrecking SA in T20 after them disastrous Test series.

for me anyway
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Not only was he the first player to take a five-wicket haul in a men's T20I match, he did it in a <a href="https://twitter.com/T20WorldCup?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@T20WorldCup</a> &#55357;&#56399;<a href="https://twitter.com/mdk_gul?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@mdk_gul</a> celebrates his 37th birthday today &#55358;&#56691; <a href="https://t.co/odFg6nunPg">pic.twitter.com/odFg6nunPg</a></p>— ICC (@ICC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ICC/status/1382167265731313664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2021</a></blockquote>
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<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 1984. One of the greatest bowlers of the Yorker, Umar Gul was born in Peshawar <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cricket?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Cricket</a> <a href="https://t.co/xHQ281gePE">pic.twitter.com/xHQ281gePE</a></p>— Saj Sadiq (@Saj_PakPassion) <a href="https://twitter.com/Saj_PakPassion/status/1382229999340691456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2021</a></blockquote>
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One of the great Pakistani bowler of this era. Lead the Pakistan bowling after spot fixinf fiasco.
 
Great T20 bowler in his prime. Very underrated ODI bowler. Should have performed better in tests.
 
Bowlers like Guldozer, Ajmal, Hafeez, Afridi, Amir, Raza Hasan and now, Shaheen are the reason why Pakistan has only conceded 200 twice in its T20I history.

His yorkers were legendary. It was a different time when Gul and Malinga were yorking those fool enough to try and hit them.
 
T20 ATG Bowler . Very good in ODIs. But bowled too short for Test cricket.

Had a purple patch in LOIs from 2007-2011 when others were falling by the wayside due to controversy n injuries.

Great servant for Pak cricket
 
Gul made his debut after the 2003 World Cup and was in line to carry the torch after the w’s retired and Shohaib and Sami had their own issues which are well documented. Therefore as a 3rd seamer at least in tests as a back up seamer he was adequate. One outstanding performance in Pak against India put others to shame. Then he was injured and made a comeback and tried his best.

How will he be remembered? As a great bowler in T20 cricket but rather flat everywhere else. The problem isn’t Gul per se the problem is that pak cricket was in the doldrums and he epitomised our insipid mediocre bowling that comes from muddled thinking and very poor player development. He was the weakest link in the bowling in 2010 England tour and not much good in the 2012 England series. I don’t care how good a T20 bowler he was, In tests he was a liability. But it’s not his fault as I say he had to bowl alongside Cheema, Junaid, tanvir, Rana and razzaq which by about 2010 were finished and then multitude of spinners in the dirt tracks of UAE and Sri Lanka. Pretty soon he was ground down spraying it around everywhere. Such a shame that he didn’t improve despite or because of coaching (waqar). Was as clean as a whistle with no trickery up his sleeve. An honest trier that perhaps should have been rotated more and allowed to develop. He actually didn’t play as much as we think. should have been our Abbas but I think he tried to emulate Shohaib and Sami too much and in the failed in both roles.

I would happily take him out to dinner and be a friend but I could never have him in the team.
 
He's definitely one of the best t20 bowlers of all time along with Malinga.

Still an underachiever who did not reach his potential, in tests Atleast.

Maybe could have done with better guidance and better coaches
 
Happy Birthday to Umar Gul

Born: April 14, 1984 (age 38 years), Peshawar, Pakistan
 
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<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 1984. One of the greatest bowlers of the Yorker, Umar Gul was born in Peshawar <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cricket?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Cricket</a> <a href="https://t.co/VJzjgkJ42P">pic.twitter.com/VJzjgkJ42P</a></p>— Saj Sadiq (@SajSadiqCricket) <a href="https://twitter.com/SajSadiqCricket/status/1514487814594908170?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Happy birthday to Umar Gul, the leading wicket taker of both the 2007 and 2009 T20 WCs:

Relive his magical 5/6 against New Zealand in 2009

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What I respect Umar Gul for is for pushing himself, pushing his boundaries to be a more potent bowler. From 2004 onwards we had a big list of tallish medium pace trundlers (Rao iftikhar etc). Most of them stayed trundlers. Which was, mind you, actually encouraged by our board who were obsessed with finding the brown Mcgrath.

Umar Gul around 2006 re-invented himself somewhat as a fast bowler (140-147), he also became a very good reverse swing and yorker bowler to the point for a few years he was the leading exponent of the art in the world.

He could have achieved more, but I think with his history of injuries which were quite obvious in his ungainly and stuff run up, not sure his body would have stood up to it.
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Thank u to everyone who is taking the time out to wish me today but i updated my bio on cricinfo and my birthday is originally on the 15th of October. So il wait for ur wishes in October inshaAllah &#55357;&#56904;</p>— Umar Gul (@mdk_gul) <a href="https://twitter.com/mdk_gul/status/1514525542472728579?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Lethal T20 bowler. Good ODI bowler. Okay Test bowler.

That's how his career was like.
 
I think he was the first truly great T20 bowler. He was incredible in that format and stood above the rest when there wasn't really any such thing as a T20 specialist.
 
Former Pakistan right-arm fast bowler Umar Gul has been named as the new bowling coach of our national man’s cricket team. He will step up into the role ahead of the upcoming limited-overs away series against Zimbabwe.

Umar Gul has played 237 international matches for Pakistan in which he has 427 scalps to his name and is considered one of the most successful fast bowlers in the history of Pakistan Cricket (especially in T20Is).

Gul was recently employed by the Afghanistan Cricket Board as the bowling consultant for the recently held training and preparation camp in UAE in April. The Pakistani veteran worked with the fast bowlers in our national lineup and considering his effectiveness in the camp as well as based on the need, it was decided to offer him a permanent contract as the national team’s bowling coach.

Afghanistan National Cricket Team has departed to Zimbabwe this afternoon, where they will feature in three ICC Cricket World Cup Super League ODIs and as many T20I matches against the hosts from June 4 to 14 in Harare.

https://cricket.af/post/acb-name-umar-gul-as-bowling-coach
 
I highly doubt they'll appreciate Gul's help here, it's extremely rare to receive thanks from their team given the political and racial tensions between the two countries. Just wish things were better but that's how the world works I'm afraid.
 
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