Since making ball do the talking decimating World’s best batting lineup lead by none other than Virat Kohli, the life for Mohammad Amir has come full circle with the Pakistan pacer failing to replicate same performance since that day.
The drought of wickets in ODI’s for Mohammad Amir is such that he was left out of Pakistan ICC World Cup-2019 squad and was just handed a final lifeline in shape of pre World Cup series against England that begins today.
The series begins at same place where Amir lead Pakistan to Champions Trophy title against India, The Oval.
So far on this tour Amir has appeared in just one of the four games Pakistan have played – a warm-up 50-over game against Northamptonshire in which he picked up 1 for 45.
If Pakstan skipper is to be believed they would be giving full chance to Amir to make his case strong for the final squad.
“As far as fast bowling goes, we will be flexible in this series, we will try and give Amir a full opportunity” Sarfaraz Ahmed said.
“The good thing is we have this opportunity to try out what we need to try out before the World Cup. We have till May 2 so we’d like to give Amir a full opportunity to stake his claim in the side”.
The pacer who was reckoned highly before 2010 spot fixing scandal broke out has missed participation in two World Cups of 2011 and 2015. If he does make it this time then it will be his first World Cup.
In the 14 ODIs since the final, he’s taken just five wickets, going wicketless in an innings as many as nine times. It’s been a strange run in which, though he’s rarely looked like taking a wicket, he’s also not looked awful. His economy rate in that period is 4.58, though if you take out games against Zimbabwe and Hong Kong that goes up to 5.28.
However it will not be easy for Amir to make his way into this Pakistan side that already have two left-arm pacemen in the World Cup squad; the emerging Shaheen Shah Afridi, against whose dazzling and swift rise Amir’s own form has paled; and Junaid Khan, an exact contemporary of Amir’s through their earliest years, who without ever attracting the same attention has picked up far more wickets since the Champions Trophy.
The arrival of Mohammad Hasnain has also made it harder for Amir. Hasnain has the one thing Pakistan’s squad has missed: genuine pace. It is something that Mickey Arthur in particular is very excited about, enough to overlook his extreme rawness. Hasnain has only played four List A games in his career, of which three were ODIs.
If Amir were to perform in these ODIs, however, Hasnain or to a lesser degree Junaid might be most at risk of losing a spot.
With excerpts from ESPNCricinfo.com
