Pakistani Cricket Player: September 2013

Tuesday 10 September 2013

Rameez Raja

Rameez Raja Biography

source(google.com.pk)
For the current Karachi cricketer, see Rameez Raja (born 1987).
Rameez Raja
رميزراجہ Personal information
Full name     Rameez Hasan Raja
Born     14 August 1962 (age 51)
Faisalbad, Punjab, Pakistan
Batting style     Right hand bat
Bowling style     Legbreak
Role     Batsman
Relations     Wasim Raja (brother)
Career statistics
Competition     Test     ODI
Matches     57     198
Runs scored     2833     5841
Batting average     31.83     32.09
100s/50s     2/22     9/31
Top score     122     119*
Balls bowled     –     1
Wickets     –     0
Bowling average     –     –
5 wickets in innings     –     –
10 wickets in match     –     n/a
Best bowling     –     0/10
Catches/stumpings     34/0     33/0
Source: ESPN Cricinfo, 31 January 2006

Rameez Hasan Raja (Urdu: رميزراجہ‎; born 14 August 1962) is a former Pakistani right handed batsman in cricket, who represented the Pakistan cricket team during the 1980s and 1990s. He also been captain of the national team. Since retiring from professional cricket, he has become a sports and television commentator.
Contents

    1 Personal life and education
    2 Career
        2.1 1987–1988: Given out for obstructing the field
        2.2 1995–1996: Captain of Pakistan Cricket team
        2.3 2003–2004: Pakistan Cricket Board
    3 Centuries of Rameez Raja
        3.1 One Day International centuries
    4 See also
    5 References
    6 External links

Personal life and education
    This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately. (March 2012)

Raja was born in faisalabad in Pakistan and studied at Saint Anthony's High School Lahore and Aitchison College, Lahore and holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration. His brother, Wasim Raja, also played Test cricket for Pakistan and another brother, Zaeem Raja, played First-class cricket in Pakistan. He completed his masters degree at Oxford University.
Career

Raja made his First class cricket debut in 1978. He received his opportunity to play in a Test match against England. His performance was unimpressive, as he was dismissed for 1 run in each innings. However, with the retirement of several players in the Pakistan squad and with the help of his years of experience in first class cricket, Raja was able to secure a spot in the national side.

Raja played international cricket for 13 years, appearing in 57 Test matches, with a career average of 31.83 and scoring two centuries. In the One Day International arena, he played 200 matches and scored 9 centuries. He was a member of the national side that reached the semi finals of the 1987 World Cup. He scored 2 centuries in the 1992 World Cup, which was held in Australia, including a century, against New Zealand, who had been un defeated during that period. Raja was awarded the man of the match for his match winning performance which earned Pakistan a place in the semi-finals of the tournament. In the final against England, Raja had the honour of taking the final catch which won the world cup for Pakistan. This became the pinnacle of his cricketing career, as within a year of this triumph, he had lost form and was dropped from the national side.

However, he was recalled back to the Pakistan squad and played in the 1996 cricket World Cup. During the 1995–1996 season, he was removed from the captaincy, after Pakistan lost their first home series to Sri Lanka. His final game in a Test match for Pakistan, was as captain in the 1996–1997 tour of Sri Lanka, however the team failed to win a match during the series. He retired from all forms of cricket in 1997 and since then he has been active as a television commentator and as an administrator for both Pakistan and International cricket.

Raja has worked as a commentator on Test Match Special and Sky Sports, during the 2006 England Test series against Pakistan. He has also worked as the chief executive of the Pakistan Cricket Board, but resigned from his job in August 2004, citing increasing media commitments.
1987–1988: Given out for obstructing the field

Raja became the first player in One Day International history to be given out by "obstructing the field" against England, in a match at Karachi in 1987. England had scored 263 runs for 6 wickets during their 44 over innings. For Pakistan, Raja opened the batting and had reached 98 runs when the last ball of the match was bowled, with Pakistan needing 25 runs to win in the last over. During this last over, he hit the ball and sprinted for two runs that would have given him his century, but was well short of the crease when the fielder's return came towards him and Raja knocked the ball away with his bat and was given out "obstructing the field".
1995–1996: Captain of Pakistan Cricket team

Almost a decade later, he was involved in another controversy when he captained Pakistan to their first Test home series loss against Sri Lanka in September 1995. Before being brought in as captain for the series, he had often opened the batting innings with both Aamer Sohail and Saeed Anwar at different match, but without success. As a captain, he did not open the innings in any of the three Test match and opted to bat at number three, his preferred position. He was sacked as captain after Pakistan lost the series and was replaced by Wasim Akram. He got a second chance at captaincy when, immediately in the next season in 1996–1997, he led the Pakistan team for the second time in two Test match against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, but failed to achieved a win. This was his final appearance in a Test match for Pakistan.

Rameez Raja

Imran Khan

Imran Khan Biography

source(google.com.pk)

Date of Birth : November 25, 1952
Place of Birth : Mianwali
He is from the Niazi Pashtun Shermankhel tribe of Mianwali. His family is settled in Lahore, however, he still considers his background Pathan as per his autobiography (Warrior Race: A Journey through the Land of the Tribal Pathans).

Imran attended Aitcheson College and the Cathedral School in Lahore until he finished middle school, then entered the Royal Grammar School, Worcester, before completing his formal schooling with an undergraduate degree in Economics from Keble College, Oxford.

While at University, Imran Khan was also the captain of the Oxford University cricket team in 1974. He and his mother, Shaukat Khanum, come from a cricketing family – the Burkis, with two of his cousins, Javed Burki and Majid Khan, also having played Test cricket for Pakistan.

He is the finest cricketer Pakistan has ever produced, who is among the finest all-rounders and greatest fast bowlers the game has ever seen. He played Test cricket for Pakistan between 1971 and 1992, and was captain of the national team when they won their maiden World Cup in 1992.

After retiring from cricket, Imran Khan founded the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre in Lahore.

In 1997, he started a socio-political movement known as the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice). The main focus of his party is to bring justice to the people of Pakistan, largely via an independent judiciary. The party has Islamic overtones and is inspired partly by Imran Khan’s renewed commitment to Islam.

As a politician, his vision is to turn Pakistan into a just society, based on humane values, by creating an independent and honest judiciary that will uphold democracy, protect human rights and ensure the rule of law and, by promoting a merit based system that provides equal opportunity for upward social mobility to the working classes. His political ideal is the famous poet-philosopher, Allama Dr Muhammad Iqbal.

Talking to Daily Telegraph of England about his political goal, Imran Khan said: “I want Pakistan to be a welfare state and a genuine democracy with a rule of law and an independent judiciary. We need decentralisation, empowering people at the grassroots.”

He became a Member of Parliament for Mianwali in the October 2002 elections. He is very critical of the judicial system in Pakistan, which he says prevents accountability for the elite class. Initially he supported 1999 military coup of General Pervez Musharraf but late came in to the forefront against General Musharraf.

In 2005, as leader of his party Imran led a protest rally against the US-led coalition for allegedly desecrating the Holy Quran and made statements denouncing the Musharraf-Bush coalition. During the visit of US President George W Bush to Pakistan in 2006, he was the only politician to attempt to hold a rally against Bush. The rally was stopped and Imran Khan was detained by the police.

Imran Khan is also a special representative of UNICEF and Chancellor of Bradford University. His honours include Hilal-i-Imtiaz (Crescent of Excellence) in 1993 by the Pakistani government; Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford and Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1983.

In 1995 he married Jemima Khan, the daughter of the late British billionaire Sir James Goldsmith. Jemima Khan embraced Islam before she married Khan. They announced their divorce on June 22, 2004. They have two sons named Suleman Khan (born on November 10, 1999) and Qasim Khan. He is alleged to have a daughter out of wedlock with Sita White, daughter of Lord Gordy White, a few years before he married Jemima Goldsmith. A US judge ruled him to be the father of Tyrian White after he failed to appear for a DNA test.

Although there are little achievements to credit of Imran Khan in the political arena, there is a long list of his achievements in the sport of cricket. He has the third highest best-ever bowling rating of 922 (1983) in Test cricket history behind S F Barnes’s 932 (1914) and G A Lohmann’s 931 (1896).

Imran Khan is pioneer of the art of reverse swing. He was one of the fastest bowlers ever to grace the game. Michael Holding, the great West Indian fast bowler and commentator, when asked in an interview with Cricinfo who the best bowlers he came up against were, said: “In my time, it was Dennis Lillee and Imran Khan. They had pace and they could do things with the ball. You had others who got a lot of wickets, but you wouldn’t say that they were fast. Imran … could intimidate people out with his pace and also get them with movement, especially into the right-hander.”

In the cricket world, Imran Khan is renowned for his leadership skills as a captain. Under his captaincy, Pakistan won the 1992 Cricket World Cup. Under his captaincy Pakistan drew three series with West Indies at a time when everybody else was being whitewashed by West Indies. He always led from the front and five of six Test hundreds and 14 of his 18 fifties came in 48 Tests as captain. His average during that time was 52.34, higher than the averages of Ian Chappell, Clive Lloyd, Steve Waugh, Gavaskar and Javed Miandad. Imran averaged 20.26 with the ball and four of his six 10-wicket hauls came as captain.

As a captain, he transformed the Pakistan team, previously known for its exceptional talent but lack of coherence into a well-moulded unit. He played his last Test match for Pakistan in January 1992 against Sri Lanka at Faisalabad and last ODI being the World Cup final against England at Melbourne in March 1992 resulting in the World Cup glory and triumph for Pakistan.

In 2000, Wisden organised a panel to vote for Wisden Cricketers of the Century who were judged to be the most prominent players of the 20th century, as selected by a 100-member panel of cricket experts appointed by Wisden Cricketers’ Almanac in 2000. In order of votes, the Wisden Cricketers of the Century, Imran Khan was number 10 on the list.

Along with Garfield Sobers, Ian Botham, Kapil Dev and Richard Hadlee, he achieved the ‘All-rounder’s triple’ (3000 runs and 300 wickets) in 75 Tests, the second fewest behind Botham’s 72, though statistically and qualitatively Imran Khan is superior to Botham in every aspect of the game except perhaps slip catching. He was one of the fastest bowlers of the world during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and in the later half of his career, one of the best batsmen in the Pakistan cricket team. He has the second highest average of all time for a Test batsman batting at number 6.

In April 2007, Imran Khan was voted as the greatest all-rounder in a readers’ poll by Cricinfo. He received 37 per cent of the votes, beating Sir Garfield Sobers who was second with 14 per cent out of the 20 all-rounders Cricinfo had selected. Incidentally Cricinfo panel chose Sobers as the greatest all-rounder independent of the poll. According to the panel, Imran Khan was Sobers’ closest rival amongst the quartet of great all-rounders (Imran, Botham, Hadlee, Kapil).

After retiring from cricket, Imran Khan founded the state-of-the-art Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in Lahore on December 29, 1994. One of the leading institutions for free cancer treatment in the world, it is an international standard institution and is free for poor people. The World Health Organisation awarded the United Arab Emirates Foundation Prize for 2004 to Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital. He is building another cancer hospital in Karachi.

Imran Khan is also the Chairman of the Mianwali Development Trust, which is building the Namal College in Mianwali as an associate college of Bradford University. The first phase of the college buildings has been completed.

Imran Khan, perhaps first Pakistani, is the Chancellor of the University of Bradford since December 7, 2005. He said the fifth Chancellor of the university and is also a patron of the Born in Bradford research project.

After imposition of the state of emergency by General Musharraf on November 3, 2007, Imran Khan was put under house arrest but his succeeded in slipping away. However, he was arrested from the University of Punjab campus in Lahore a few days later with help of the Islami Jamiat-e-Talba, student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami. On November 19, 2007, he let out the word through his party members and family that he had begun a hunger strike. He was one of the 3,000 political prisoners released from imprisonment on November 21, 2007.

In 1976 and 1980, Imran Khan was awarded the Cricket Society Wetherall Award. He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2004 Asian Jewel Awards in London, UK.

Imran Khan

Aamer Sohail

Aamer Sohail Biography

source (google.com.pk)

Aamer Sohail born on 14 September 1966 in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.He is a former professional Pakistani cricketer and PCB Chief Selector. With Saeed Anwar, he formed one of the best opening combinations Pakistan has ever had.
Career
Sohail made his first-class debut in 1983, a left-handed opening batsman and occasional left-arm spin bowler. In a playing career that spanned eighteen years, Sohail played in 195 first-class and 261 List A Limited Overs matches, including 47 Test matches and 156 One Day Internationals for Pakistani.
Debut
An aggressive batsman, Sohail's first appeared for the national team in a 1990 one-day International against Sri Lanka and enjoyed a successful international career. He was an important member of the team that won the 1992 Cricket World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
1996-98: Pakistan Captain
Sohail captained Pakistan in six Tests in 1998, becoming the first Pakistani captain to defeat South Africa in a Test Match. He led Pakistan through 22 One Day Internationals from 1996 to 1998, winning nine and averaging 41.5 with the bat.
Sohail played a big role in Pakistan's World-Cup triumph in 1992, famously telling Ian Botham that he might want to send his mother-in-law in to bat after Botham was controversially given out for nought in the final. Sohail's most infamous moment on the cricket field, however, was in the 1996 World Cup Quarter Final against arch rival India in Bangalore. Sohail was captaining the side in pursuit of a relatively large target of 287 in 50 overs. With opening partner Saeed Anwar, he got Pakistan off to a flying start. With the score at 109 for one, and Saeed Anwar (48) back in the pavilion, Sohail smashed a delivery from Indian seamer Venkatesh Prasad through the covers for four. Both players exchanged words, and Sohail unnecessarily pointed his finger aggressively at Prasad. The next delivery clean-bowled him and triggered a batting collapse which ultimately lost the game and eliminated Pakistan from the competition.

Aamer Sohail

Waqar Younis

Waqar Younis Biography

source (google .com.pk)
Waqar Younis Maitla is a former Pakistani right arm fast bowler born in Vehari Punjab. He is one of the top ten cricketers of all time and got worldwide fame. He is well known in cricket for his ability to “reverse swing a cricket ball” at high speed while bowling at cricket pitch. During his career he took “373 Test Wickets” and “416 One Day International Wickets”. Waqar Younis is considered as one of the best exponents of swing bowling delivery. He has a best strike rate for any bowler with more than “200 Test Wickets”.
Personal Information of Waqar Younis

Personal information
Full name Waqar Younis Maitla
Born 16 November 1971 (age 39)
Vehari, Punjab, Pakistan

Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Batting style Right hand bat
Bowling style Right arm fast
Role Bowler
Waqar Younis Maitla is a former Pakistani right arm fast bowler born in Vehari Punjab. He is one of the top ten cricketers of all time and got worldwide fame. He is well known in cricket for his ability to “reverse swing a cricket ball” at high speed while bowling at cricket pitch. During his career he took “373 Test Wickets” and “416 One Day International Wickets”. Waqar Younis is considered as one of the best exponents of swing bowling delivery. He has a best strike rate for any bowler with more than “200 Test Wickets”.
Waqar Younis Maitla, nicknamed Wiki,[1] is a former Pakistani cricketer, widely regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time.[2] Well known for his ability to reverse swing the ball, he has 373 Test wickets and 416 ODI wickets to his credit. Waqar has the best strike rate for any bowler with over 200 Test wickets.
Waqar Younis Maitla is a former Pakistani right arm fast bowler born in Vehari Punjab. He is one of the top ten cricketers of all time and got worldwide fame. He is well known in cricket for his ability to “reverse swing a cricket ball” at high speed while bowling at cricket pitch. During his career he took “373 Test Wickets” and “416 One Day International Wickets”. Waqar Younis is considered as one of the best exponents of swing bowling delivery. He has a best strike rate for any bowler with more than “200 Test Wickets”.
Domestic Team Information
Domestic team information
Years Team
2003-2004 Allied Bank Limited
2003 Warwickshire
2001-2003 National Bank of Pakistan
2000-2001 Lahore Blues
1999-2000 REDCO Pakistan Limited
1998-1999 Rawalpindi
1998-1999 Karachi
1997-1998 Glamorgan
1990-1993 Surrey
1988-1989, 1996-1997 United Bank Limited
1987-1988, 1997-1998 Multan
International Information
International information
National side Pakistan
Test debut (cap 111) 15 November 1989 v India
Last Test 2 January 2003 v South Africa
ODI debut (cap 71) 14 October 1989 v West Indies
Last ODI 4 March 2003 v Zimbabwe
ODI shirt no. 99
Career Statistics
Career statistics
Competition Test ODI FC LA
Matches 87 262 228 411
Runs scored 1010 969 2972 1553
Batting average 10.2 10.3 13.38 10.42
100s/50s 0/0 0/0 0/6 0/0
Top score 45 37 64 45
Balls bowled 16224 12698 39181 19841
Wickets 373 416 956 675
Bowling average 23.56 23.84 22.33 22.36
5 wickets in innings 22 13 63 17
10 wickets in match 5 n/a 14 n/a
Best bowling Jul-76 Jul-36 17-Aug Jul-36
Catches/stumpings 18/– 35/– 58/– 56/–
From 2006 to 2007 he worked as a national bowling coach. He was appointed as a coach of “Pakistan Cricket Team” on 3rd March 2010. He will take part in all form of cricket matches due to his managerial contract with “Pakistan Cricket Board” right up to December 2011.
Personal information
Full name Waqar Younis Maitla
Born 16 November 1971 (age 39)
Vehari, Punjab, Pakistan

Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Batting style Right hand bat
Bowling style Right arm fast
Role Bowler
Domestic Team Information

Domestic team information
Years Team
2003-2004 Allied Bank Limited
2003 Warwickshire
2001-2003 National Bank of Pakistan
2000-2001 Lahore Blues
1999-2000 REDCO Pakistan Limited
1998-1999 Rawalpindi
1998-1999 Karachi
1997-1998 Glamorgan
1990-1993 Surrey
1988-1989, 1996-1997 United Bank Limited
1987-1988, 1997-1998 Multan
International Information

International information
National side Pakistan
Test debut (cap 111) 15 November 1989 v India
Last Test 2 January 2003 v South Africa
ODI debut (cap 71) 14 October 1989 v West Indies
Last ODI 4 March 2003 v Zimbabwe
ODI shirt no. 99
Career Statistics

Career statistics
Competition Test ODI FC LA
Matches 87 262 228 411
Runs scored 1010 969 2972 1553
Batting average 10.2 10.3 13.38 10.42
100s/50s 0/0 0/0 0/6 0/0
Top score 45 37 64 45
Balls bowled 16224 12698 39181 19841
Wickets 373 416 956 675
Bowling average 23.56 23.84 22.33 22.36
5 wickets in innings 22 13 63 17
10 wickets in match 5 n/a 14 n/a
Best bowling Jul-76 Jul-36 17-Aug Jul-36
Catches/stumpings 18/– 35/– 58/– 56/–

Waqar Younis

Waqar Younis