Southpaws: always left out of Pakistan’s middle order

Fawad Alam is another left-handed option that can be utilised in the middle-order.

KARACHI: If a list of great left-handed middle-order Test batsmen is compiled, Pakistan would unfortunately have no representation as no southpaw worth his salt, other than the flamboyant Wasim Raja, adorned the green long enough in the middle-order to register even a single century.

Pakistan’s misfortune is best summed up by the statistics of Asim Kamal; a Karachi-born 12-Test wonder, whose top score was a match-winning 99 against South Africa on debut in 2003.

A single run kept Kamal away from recording a hundred on his debut, but the real tragedy was that despite consistently scoring runs and registering a tally of eight fifties in 12 Tests, Kamal’s career was cut short by the bizarre politics that plague Pakistani cricket.

Wasim, on the other hand, represented the country in 57 Tests and played his last game in the longest format at Auckland in January 1985. The left-hander took a curious liking to the venomous West Indian attack of the 70s and 80s, and two out of his four Test hundreds were against the Calypso Kings.

After Wasim’s exit from the international arena, diminutive dapper Asif Mujtaba entered the fray. Like Kamal, Mujtaba was bred on Karachi wickets and spent staggering amounts of time on the pitch in first-class matches.

However, Mujtaba, despite gaining international fame for his last-ball six that tied an ODI in Hobart in 1993, featured in only 25 Tests in a start-stop career that spanned over 11 years. His main flaw was that he was unable to convert his starts into big innings and even though he crossed the 50-run mark eight times, his highest score was only 67.

Perhaps the most damning indictment though of Pakistan’s lack of middle-order left-handers may be that the only century by a specialist left-handed batsman was scored by an opener who was being played out of place.

Former captain Aamer Sohail registered a match-saving 105-run knock against Australia in the 1994 series at home; a series that later gained notoriety due to the betting and bribery allegations levelled against the then Pakistan captain Saleem Malik. Sohail played as an opener throughout his career and was only pushed down the order in the Lahore Test due to an injury sustained in the match.

As confidence of selectors on southpaws dwindled, the most recent left-handed middle order batsmen – Qaiser Abbas in 2000 and Umar Amin in 2010 – have failed to hold down a place in the Test side. Amin is still very much in the mix but his repeated failures in limited-over formats last year have reduced his chances of making a return to the Test fold in the immediate future.

Sialkot’s Haris Sohail is one promising youngster who has been on the brink of breaking into the Test side for a couple of years now. The 25-year old has four ODI appearances and a solitary T20I against his name.

While injuries and inconsistent selection have put his debut on hold, he continues to perform impressively in the first-class arena, notching 11 hundreds in 57 matches at an average of 52.

Fawad Alam — consigned to a mere three Tests despite his century on debut as a makeshift opener – is another left-handed option that can be utilised in the middle-order.

The plucky Karachi man made a resounding comeback in ODI cricket and has impressed greatly in the five matches that he has played in the 50 overs format since his return in the Asia Cup.

The current six-member national selection committee must realise that a left-handed middle-order batsman is the need of the hour and that Pakistan must invest in Haris or Alam while trying to unearth the next Mike Hussey or Kumar Sangakkara.