About 10 years ago Shoaib Malik was deemed to be the next big thing in Pakistan Cricket. Malik even was on his way to prove this prophecy by the general public and experts’ right. He went on to win matches for Pakistani and played a lot of crucial knocks with the bat and also proved to be a fruitful right arm off break spinner.
Fondest of the memories are his hundreds against arch rivals India which were vital in Pakistan’s wins. The 143 runs against India in 2004 in the Asia cup is his best ODI innings till date in terms of runs scored. It was a match winning innings and it earned Malik the player of the match award as Pakistan won the game by 59 runs.
Not to forget that Shoaib Malik got the prized scalps of Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh in this match too. In the champions trophy 2009, Pakistan vs India match was a much anticipated as fans from both the nations were in full flow and extremely enthusiastic. Malik scored a brilliant century yet again in this match which helped Pakistan set India a high target of 303 runs. Pakistan won the match by 53 runs and it earned Malik man of the match award. Malik was a match winner and on his day he could destroy any opposition. In tests there were no such notable performances from him. Malik was the captain of the Pakistani team that reached the finals of the inaugral 2007 T20 World Cup and a part of the winning team that won the 2009 T20 World Cup.
“Malik was a match winner that Pakistan wasted.”
All this glamour and great run of form was followed up by an extremely rough patch in Malik’s career. Malik was dropped of the test team in 2010 and was never picked back until the 2015 series against England. The same was the case in ODI’s as he could not manage to perform and failed consistently which forced the selectors to pick and drop for some time from ODI’s and then he was permanently dropped after 2013 champions trophy.
Malik’s comeback has been nothing short of a fairy tale. Malik got a century in his comeback ODI against Zimbabwe earlier this year. He has been phenomenal in 2015 as he averages 77.0 in ODI’s. Malik has bagged 539 runs at a strike rate of 108.45 in 13 matches. In addition to that, he has scored one century and three fifties. Shoaib’s test comeback was even more phenomenal as he went on to score a mammoth 245 runs on his comeback innings. Malik has also record his best bowling figures in tests on his comeback which are 4/43 against England.
“But he has been rejuvenated back. This has been a great comeback indeed.”
