Imran Nazir () (born 16 December 1981) is a Pakistani former

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who played for the

Pakistan national cricket team The Pakistan men's national cricket team represents Pakistan in international cricket. It is controlled by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), the governing body for cricket in Pakistan, which is a Full Member of the International Cricket Counc ...

between 1999 and 2012 and was widely known to be a hard hitting opening batter.

Domestic career

In 2008, Nazir signed for the

Indian Cricket League The Indian Cricket League (ICL) was a short-lived cricket league that ran from 2007 to 2009. It was sponsored by Zee Entertainment Enterprises, a media company. The ICL had two seasons, featuring four international teams and nine domestic teams ...

and played for the Lahore Badshahs. He scored 111 runs not out, off just 44 deliveries, against the Hyderabad Heroes in the third of the best of three finals of the tournament and helped his team achieve victory. After signing up for the Indian Cricket League, his chances of ever playing again for Pakistan looked slim. However, on 2 February 2009, a Pakistani court suspended the ban on Indian Cricket League players, which paved the way for Nazir to make a return to international cricket. Since then, he has played two National T20 cups. He was selected for the Hong Kong Sixes tournament 2010 in Hong Kong as a member of the Pakistani squad. The final match, which was in Pakistan's favour, was lost due to Imran Nazir's bowling. 46 runs were required from the last 8-ball over but Imran Nazir gave away 48 runs in 7 balls. In

Twenty20 Twenty20 (abbreviated T20) is a shortened format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the county cricket, inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two t ...

games he has a

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

of 1.00 and in his 8 deliveries he has 3

wickets In the sport of cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is either of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at each end of the pitch. The fielding team's players can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a ...

strike rate Strike rate refers to two different cricket statistics, statistics in the sport of cricket. Batting strike rate is a measure of how quickly a batsman, batter achieves the primary goal of batting (cricket), batting, namely scoring run (cricket), r ...

of less than 3. He has also played for Dhaka Dynamites in Bangladesh's NCL T20 Bangladesh. He has played for

Dhaka Gladiators The Dhaka Capitals is a professional franchise cricket team that plays in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL). They represent Dhaka Division. The team plays their home matches at the SBNCS. Dhaka is one of the most successful BPL franchises, ...

Bangladesh Premier League Bangladesh Premier League (), also known as Dutch-Bangla Bank BPL for sponsorship reasons, is a professional Twenty20 cricket league in Bangladesh organised by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). It was formed in 2011 by the BCB, after the su ...

(BPL). He has played 7 matches in BPL and has scored 207 runs with an average of 41.4 runs per game. He has a

of 150. His highest score is 58 and he has scored 2 half centuries in this tournament and has hit twenty one 4s and nine 6s. He has played for

Lahore Qalandars Lahore Qalandars is a Pakistani professional cricket franchise which plays in the Pakistan Super League, representing Lahore, the capital of Punjab. They are the current champions of the PSL and the most successful team in the tournament's hist ...

in 2018 Abu Dhabi T20 Trophy.

International career

Nazir made his debut in

Test cricket Test cricket is a Forms of cricket, format of the sport of cricket, considered the game’s most prestigious and traditional form. Often referred to as the "ultimate test" of a cricketer's skill, endurance, and temperament, it is a format of i ...

in March 1999 against

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

in Pakistan, and his

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

debut against the same opposition at

Visakhapatnam Visakhapatnam (; List of renamed places in India, formerly known as Vizagapatam, and also referred to as Vizag, Visakha, and Waltair) is the largest and most populous metropolitan city in the States and union territories of India, Indian stat ...

in India. He played in 8 Test matches between 1999–2002 and secured a spot in the Pakistan squad since 2002. He also played in One Day International arena, but he could never cement his place in the squad. The emergence of several Pakistan opening batsmen such as

Imran Farhat Imran Farhat (Punjabi:عمران فرحت , born 20 May 1982) is a Pakistani cricket coach and former cricketer who played for Pakistan national cricket team between 2001 and 2013. He usually opened the batting in most of his international inni ...

, Mohammad Hafeez,

Yasir Hameed Yasir Hameed Qureshi (Urdu: یاسر حمید قریشی) (born 28 February 1978) is a former Pakistani cricketer, who played 25 Test cricket, Tests and 56 One Day International, ODIs for Pakistan. He scored two Century (cricket), centuries (i. ...

, Taufeeq Umar, and

Salman Butt Salman Butt ( Punjabi:سلمان بٹ; born 7 October 1984) is a former Pakistani cricketer and captain who played for Pakistan national cricket team between 2003 and 2010, before getting banned for five years for his involvement in a 2010 spo ...

kept him out of the national side. However, he displayed excellent cricketing performances in

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

. Nazir made his return to the national team in the second

against

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in February 2007 during Pakistan's tour of South Africa. He impressed the Pakistan national selectors with his innings of 57 runs from just 39 deliveries, though he struggled to score runs during the rest of the tournament. Nazir was named in Pakistan's squad for the 2007 World Cup. He scored 160 runs against

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

in Pakistan's last match during the

2007 Cricket World Cup The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup was the ninth Cricket World Cup, a One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament that took place in the West Indies from 13 March to 28 April 2007. There were a total of 51 matches played, three fewer than at the 2 ...

, after being knocked out by

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. It was the second highest score by a Pakistani batter and the eighth highest score by any batter in World Cup history and his 8 sixes equalled the World Cup record of

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

batter,

Ricky Ponting Ricky Thomas Ponting (born 19 December 1974) is an Australian cricket coach, commentator, and former player. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time and is the most successful captain in international cricket history, ...

. It was also the highest runs he scored in

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the num ...

. Having severed ties with the Indian Cricket League, Nazir was recalled to the One Day International and Twenty20 squads for Pakistan's tour of Sri Lanka in August 2009. In November 2009, he scored 58 from 38 balls in a Twenty20 against New Zealand claiming the man of the match award. However, after scores of 4 and 2 against England in early 2010 he was dropped from the side for the World Twenty20. Nazir was recalled to the Pakistan team in September 2012 for the Twenty20 series against Australia and the following ICC World Twenty20 which was held in Sri Lanka. He scored 153 runs in 6 matches with a reasonable average of 25.50 and with a strike rate of 150.00 which included a match winning innings of 72 against Bangladesh. Nazir played his last international cricket in October 2012.

Charity work

In May 2011, Nazir made a surprise guest appearance at a charity cricket match at Luton Town Football Club between a football legends team and Luton Pakistanis CC. The event was staged to promote community cohesion in the town, as well as raise money for a cancer charity.

Personal life

Imran Nazir has one brother (Mushtaq Nazir) . He is married to Amber Hafeez. His wedding was held in 2009. Imran Nazir has said that his elder brother was his cricketing idol during his childhood. Nazir suffered a joint problem which had him bedridden for four and a half years. "I couldn’t use my hands. I was unable to fully bend my fingers, there was stiffness. If I was to bend my arm, there was a locking of the elbow joint Every joint in my body ached. I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t lie down, I couldn’t sleep", said Nazir. He was able to resume playing cricket in 2018 after receiving

stem cell therapy Stem-cell therapy uses stem cells to treat or prevent a disease or condition. , the only FDA-approved therapy using stem cells is hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. This usually takes the form of a bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cel ...

and

platelet-rich plasma Platelet-rich plasma (PRP), also known as autologous conditioned plasma, is a concentrate of plasma protein derived from whole blood, centrifuged to remove red blood cells but retaining platelets. Though promoted for treating various medical con ...

therapy.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nazir, Imran 1981 births Living people Pakistan One Day International cricketers Cricketers at the 2007 Cricket World Cup Pakistan Test cricketers Pakistan Twenty20 International cricketers 21st-century Pakistani sportsmen Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited cricketers ICL Pakistan XI cricketers Lahore Badshahs cricketers Pakistani cricketers Cricketers from Gujranwala Water and Power Development Authority cricketers Sheikhupura cricketers National Bank of Pakistan cricketers Sialkot cricketers Sialkot Stallions cricketers Peshawar Panthers cricketers Dhaka Division cricketers Dhaka Dominators cricketers Pakistani expatriate cricketers in Bangladesh Nagenahira Nagas cricketers Pakistani expatriate cricketers in Sri Lanka Punjab (Pakistan) cricketers