By Farhan Nisar
LAHORE
(TheSportsNext) July 30, 2012: Pakistan’s young top-order batsman Azhar Ali
said Monday that his main focus was to become number one batsman in Test
cricket.
Talking to this scribe at the National Cricket Academy here,
Azhar Ali said that he started playing cricket with the resolve to become a
reliable and match-winning batsman in the national cricket team.
Azhar Ali, who scored 217 runs in five One Day International
matches at the strike rate of 70 runs per 100 balls against Sri Lanka recently,
was criticized for his self-centric batting but the right-hander defended
himself saying, “I always play as per the needs of the team and no one in the
team has ever expressed dismay over my brand of batting”.
Azhar is not the genuine one-down batsman and he admitted
the fact by saying that former coach Waqar Younis had told him to be prepared
to take the number three position because the team needed a compact player on
this position.
He regretted not getting hundred in the second One Day
International against Sri Lanka where he got out for 96 runs from 119 balls. He
said that had he stayed at the crease he would have not only completed the
century but Pakistan could also have won that match.
He stated that he was learning the art of top-order batting
from skipper Misbah-ul-Haq and former captain Younus Khan and added that he was
getting ready to perform for Pakistan in the tour to South Africa.
“I will try my best to perform exceedingly well against the
Proteas so that I achieve the highest spot in the ICC Test Ranking for Batsmen”,
he said.
Azhar Ali, who was the top-scorer for Pakistan in the
recently concluded Test series against Sri Lanka scoring 380 runs in three
matches at an average of 76 runs per innings, said that it was his wish to
score over 7,000 runs in Test cricket.
When asked if fame has made any changes in his personality,
Azhar Ali said that the people who know him can tell anyone that there has been
no change in me even after getting international fame as Pakistani cricketer.
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