Ajmal Shahzad
Encyclopedia
Ajmal Shahzad is an English cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er who plays for Yorkshire County Cricket Club
Yorkshire County Cricket Club
Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....

. A right-handed batsman and right-arm fast-medium bowler
Fast bowling
Fast bowling, sometimes known as pace bowling, is one of the two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket. The other is spin bowling...

, he made his international debut in a Twenty20 International
Twenty20 International
A Twenty20 International is a form of cricket which is played over 20 overs per side between two national cricket teams. The game is played under the rules of Twenty20 cricket...

 for England in February 2010. He later made his ODI debut before becoming the 650th player to play Test cricket
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 for England, making his debut against Bangladesh
Bangladeshi cricket team in England in 2010
-2nd Test:-1st ODI:-2nd ODI:-3rd ODI:-First Class: Surrey vs Bangladeshis:-First Class: Bangladeshis vs Essex:-First Class: Bangladeshis vs England Lions:-List A: Sussex vs Bangladeshis:-List A: Middlesex vs Bangladeshis:...

.

Background

Shahzad was born in a family of Pakistani background; his father migrated from Gujar Khan
Gujar Khan
Gujar Khan is a city in Rawalpindi District, Punjab, Pakistan. It is the headquarters of Gujar Khan Tehsil, the largest tehsil of Punjab. It is approximately 55 kilometres southeast of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan and 220 km to the north west of Lahore, capital of Punjab...

, Punjab. His father was an accountant by profession who himself represented Idle and played in Pakistan's Quaid-i-Azam Trophy
Quaid-i-Azam Trophy
The Quaid-i-Azam Trophy is the premier first-class domestic cricket competition in Pakistan.-History :Named after Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, the Trophy was introduced in 1953 to help pick the squad for Pakistan's Test tour of England in the forthcoming year...

. Shahzad grew up in Bradford
Bradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...

 and attended Bradford Grammar School
Bradford Grammar School
Bradford Grammar School is a co-educational, independent school in Frizinghall, Bradford, West Yorkshire. Headmaster, Stephen Davidson is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference . The school was founded in 1548 and granted its Charter by King Charles II in 1662...

 and later Woodhouse Grove School
Woodhouse Grove School
Woodhouse Grove School is an independent, coeducational, day and boarding public school and Sixth Form college in Apperley Bridge, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England for children aged between 11 and 18...

; he lived close to the house of fellow cricketer Adil Rashid
Adil Rashid
Adil Usman Rashid is an English cricketer of Pakistani origins, who plays for Yorkshire. Previously a player with England Under-19s, in December 2008, he was called into the full England Test squad, for the Test matches to be played in India...

. He studied four months of pharmacy at Bradford University before eventually opting to move to Leeds Metropolitan and instead doing sports science to enhance his career in cricket.

Domestic career

In 2004, he became the first Yorkshire-born player of Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

n extraction to play for Yorkshire.

In his only first-class appearance in 2006, he failed to take a wicket, and scored just two runs. He enjoyed more success in the shorter formats of the game, claiming five wickets and 18 runs in four List A matches for his native county, and in his sole Twenty20
Twenty20
Twenty20 is a form of cricket, originally introduced in England for professional inter-county competition by the England and Wales Cricket Board , in 2003. A Twenty20 game involves two teams, each has a single innings, batting for a maximum of 20 overs. Twenty20 cricket is also known as T20 cricket...

 appearance, he took 2 wickets.

In 2009, Shahzad enjoyed an injury free and successful season, taking 40 wickets and scoring 445 runs in the late middle order, raising hopes that he may yet exhibit genuine all-rounder potential. His performances gained him a call up to the England performance squad in South Africa squad, where he impressed coach Andy Flower
Andy Flower
Andrew "Andy" Flower OBE is a former international cricketer for Zimbabwe and is currently the England coach.-Playing career:...

.

International career

In January 2010, he was named in the Test and ODI squads for the England tour of Bangladesh. On his debut for England in a Twenty20 International against Pakistan, he claimed two wickets, both in his first over.

He later made his ODI début against Bangladesh
English cricket team in Bangladesh in 2009–10
The England cricket team toured Bangladesh, playing three One Day Internationals and two Test matches, at the end of the 2009–10 cricket season. They were captained by Alastair Cook, due to regular captain Andrew Strauss controversially missing the series to rest for the 2010–11 Ashes series...

, again taking a wicket in his first over. When Bangladesh
Bangladeshi cricket team in England in 2010
-2nd Test:-1st ODI:-2nd ODI:-3rd ODI:-First Class: Surrey vs Bangladeshis:-First Class: Bangladeshis vs Essex:-First Class: Bangladeshis vs England Lions:-List A: Sussex vs Bangladeshis:-List A: Middlesex vs Bangladeshis:...

 later toured England, he made his Test début in the second Test, replacing the injured Tim Bresnan
Tim Bresnan
Timothy 'Tim' Thomas Bresnan is an English cricketer. He is a fast-medium bowler, as well as being respected for his ability with the bat for Yorkshire. He normally fields in the deep. He won the NBC Denis Compton Award in 2002 and 2003. In June 2006 he was called up to the England One Day...

. After only scoring 5 runs in England's innings and an expensive start with the ball, he later took 3 wickets in 3 overs in his second spell as Bangladesh missed the follow-on
Follow-on
Follow-on is a term used in the sport of cricket to describe a situation where the team that bats second is forced to take its second batting innings immediately after its first, because the team was not able to get close enough to the score achieved by the first team batting in the first innings...

 target.

Shahzad was subsequently selected for the Ashes 2010-11 squad, but did not featured in any of the matches. He was also chosen for the Twenty20 and ODI squads which toured Australia. He was in the 15 man squad for the 2011 ICC World Cup; in a match against India, he scored a six off the first ball he faced during the last over of the match which helped secure a draw. He was later forced to withdraw from the squad with injury and upon his return for Yorkshire, he struggled for form and was left out of the England Test and One-Day squads to face Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan cricket team in England in 2011
-First-class: England Lions vs Sri Lankans:-First class: Essex vs Sri Lankans:-List A: Worcestershire Royals vs Sri Lankans:-1st Test:Jonathan Trott's score of 203 is the highest score by an English batsman against Sri Lanka, beating the previous score of 174 set by Graham Gooch in 1991. Sri...

.

External links

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