“I don’t think I can take such torture. Enough is enough,” he says.
Pakistan’s fast bowler Mohammad Amir has retired from international cricket, the PCB confirmed. Amir represented Pakistan in 36 events, 61 ODI and 50 T20I, and recently played in the inaugural Lankan Premier League for runners-up Galle Gladiators.
“Pakistan Cricket Board Executive Director Wasim Khan spoke with Mohammad Amir this afternoon following reports that the fast pitcher had announced his retirement from international cricket. The 28-year-old confirmed to the PCB Executive Director that He has no desire or intention to play cricket internationally and as such should not be considered for future international matches, “said a statement from the PCB. “This is a personal decision of Mohammad Amir, which the PCB respects and as such will not comment further on this matter at this time.”
The statement serves as another reminder of the extent to which relations between Amir and the current leadership of the team have been broken. It emerged at the end of an interview he gave to Samaa TV on Thursday, in which Amir claimed that he had been “mentally tortured” by the team’s management, frequently mocked, and deliberately sidelined.
“I am quitting cricket for now because I am being mentally tortured. I don’t think I can endure such torture. I have endured a lot of torture from 2010 to 2015, so I served my sentence. I was tortured when they told me that the PCB invested a lot in me. Just I will say that two people invested a lot in me: [former PCB chairman] Najam Sethi and [former Pakistan captain] Shahid Afridi.
“They were the only two. The rest of the team was like, ‘We don’t want to play with Amir.’ Recently, the atmosphere that has been created means that I get teased all the time when they tell me I don’t want to.” play for my country. Who doesn’t want to play for their country? Every two months, someone says something against me. Sometimes the bowling coach [Waqar Younis] says Amir left us, sometimes they tell me that my workload is not satisfactory. Enough is enough.”
Discontent had been simmering for a while before finally coming to a head on Thursday. Amir, who dropped out of cricket testing last year, was dropped from the PCB’s core contract list earlier this year and dropped from the 35-man squad from Pakistan to New Zealand last month.
Following the team’s announcement, Amir tweeted that “only Misbah” could explain why he had not been included, before criticizing bowling coach Waqar Younis for speaking out about his workload. That, coupled with Amir’s frequent praise of former Pakistan head coach Mickey Arthur, at one point saying “he would love to play Arthur on any team in the world,” offered some insight into how he viewed his relationships with the current body. technical. His singling out Sethi for praise in his statement is unlikely to have worked too well against his successor Ehsan Mani or CEO Wasim Khan, further condemning Amir to international exclusion.
The 28-year-old continues to be highly sought after in T20 leagues around the world, for which his complete international retirement should allow him more time. Although his specific attacks on this management suggest that he would be open to return if things on the board changed, for now Amir appears to have ended a tumultuous international career that seemed to have been sabotaged just as he started in 2010, before a promising second. It comes after a five-year ban that ended in failure.
Even so, the successes that Amir enjoyed in a restricted international career would surpass most full careers. Bursting onto the international scene in 2009, he played a pivotal role in the 2009 T20 World Cup final against Sri Lanka, eliminating Player of the Tournament Tillakaratne Dilshan in the first time Pakistan clinched the title. He would go on to take five wickets in the Boxing Day test later that year, and continued to torment Australia in England in 2010, taking seven wickets at Leeds when Australia slipped for an 88 first inning, and Pakistan won their first test against that opposition in 15 years. Five wickets at Lord’s against England were next before the point-fixing scandal broke out.
After his return, he was never so dazzlingly better, although every once in a while there were obvious glimpses of that outrageous talent. The spell with the new ball in the 2017 Champions Trophy final may be the most famous, as it eliminated Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan to establish a 180-run victory. To a large extent, however, he had reinvented himself more as a white ball specialist than a full swing pitcher, giving him more opportunities to play in T20 leagues around the world.
Amir last played for Pakistan at the T20I in England in August this year. He finishes his international career with 259 lands: 119 in Tests, 81 in ODI and 59 in T20I.
Danyal Rasool is deputy editor of ESPNcricinfo. @ Danny61000
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