Fawad Alam, a batter who was out of favor, has ended his 15-year career in Pakistan. Alam, who will turn 37 in October, will play for the Chicago Kingsmen in Minor League Cricket T20, a competition that supports Major League Cricket (MLC), the United States’s just-finished marquee T20 competition. He joins a long list of Pakistani athletes who have relocated to the United States to pursue their careers there, including Sami Aslam, Hammad Azam, Saif Badar, and Mohammad Mohsin.
Alam made his white ball debut for Pakistan in 2007, but since then, his appearances in the Pakistani jersey have been at best intermittent. In spite of scoring a tonne in his Test debut in 2009 and averaging 55 on the domestic circuit, he was dropped a few Tests later and didn’t play his next one for 11 years. After his career received a new breath of life in 2020, Alam briefly established himself on the Test team. In the third game after his comeback, he justified his selection by scoring a hundred in difficult conditions in New Zealand. He added hundreds to that against Zimbabwe, the West Indies, and South Africa.
Alam’s unconventional strategy, nonetheless, was exposed in a match against Australia in early 2022. In July 2022, after failing in a Test match against Sri Lanka, he was eventually dropped after managing 33 in four innings on the easiest tracks. He played for Pakistan in the team that won the 2009 T20 World Cup, however, he only managed to play in 11 more matches after the team’s victory. He represented Pakistan in 19 Tests, 38 ODIs, and 24 T20Is. He scored 5 Test centuries and 1 ODI century, both against Sri Lanka in the 2014 Asia Cup.
Alam’s exclusion from the Test team and his unusual playing style caused a rift in Pakistan cricket that lasted for almost ten years. As he consistently produced a tonne of runs in the Qaid-e-Azam trophy, former players and the media loudly argued for his nomination. He retires with 201 first-class matches and almost 14,000 runs in domestic cricket over 19 years.