Forgotten man: Faisal Iqbal has not played a Test match in more than seven years while his last ODI appearance came more than a decade ago. PHOTO: AFP
Karachi’s middle-order batsman Faisal Iqbal has thrown his name among the mix, and is confident of making a surprise comeback into the national fold — despite not donning the whites since January 2010.
Iqbal, despite being 35, still feels he has some years left in him and revealed that he has been working to stay fit.
“I have been working on my fitness and my skills. I know I am fit enough to be in the national team and will be considered if I perform in the upcoming domestic season,” Iqbal told The Express Tribune. “Two experienced players have left the team and a space in the middle-order is open. I am a middle-order batsman and that is where I have been performing well there for some years now.”
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Iqbal scored 493 runs in the last Quaid-e-Azam trophy in seven matches. His runs came at a decent but unspectacular average of 37.92 and strike-rate of 52.55 — scoring one century and three half-centuries in 14 innings.
“When an experienced player leaves the team, another senior player should replace him,” he said. “No team in the world can succeed with just young players. There has to be a combination of senior and junior players. I am one of the senior-most players around and am experienced enough to help the side.”
He added that the selection committee is selecting purely on merit, which means he just needs to catch their eye. “I am sure if I perform in the domestic cricket I will get a place in the team. I have been working hard for this and the time has finally come to earn back a place in the team,” he said. “When I was dropped from the team, I was told to keep performing in the domestic circuit and that I will be considered once a slot opens up in the middle-order. Hence, I will be doing my best this season in order to achieve my target of returning to the national side.”
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Iqbal added that he has been focusing on four-day and one-day formats rather than the shortest version of the game. “I was not picked for the upcoming national T20 as I have not performed in that format, but in four-day cricket I have been scoring centuries,” he said. “I have been leading Karachi Zebra for the past seven years but since this time around there is only one team from Karachi in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, competition will be even tougher.”
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