Zaheer Abbas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Tests	ODIs
Zaheer Abbas Pakistan (Pak)

Batting style	Right-handed batsman (RHB)
Bowling type	Right-arm offbreak (OB)
Matches	78	62
Runs scored	5062	2572
Batting average	44.79	47.62
100s/50s	12/20	7/13
Top score	274	123
Overs bowled	61.4	46.4
Wickets	3	7
Bowling average	44.00	31.85
5 wickets in innings	0	0
10 wickets in match	0	n/a
Best bowling	2/21	2/26
Catches/stumpings	34/0	16/0
As of November 6, 2005 Source: Cricinfo.com

Syed Zaheer Abbas Kirmani (Urdu: سید ظہیر عباس کرمانی) (born 24 July 1947) is a former Pakistani cricketer. He is rated as one of the best ever Pakistani batsmen.

Abbas played his first Test in 1969, and in only his second Test he scored 274 against England, still the fourth highest score ever by a Pakistani. This was the first of four double-centuries Abbas made; only six men have scored more.[1] He also had great success in first-class cricket, and is the only Asian batsman to have scored one hundred centuries.[2] Hence he was given the unofficial title of the 'Run Machine.' He also had a long stint playing with Gloucestershire. Zaheer's connection with Gloucestershire began in 1972 when he opted to join the county's cricket team. He would stay at the club for thirteen years.

During that time he scored over a thousand runs in the majority of his thirteen seasons. He also hit over two thousand runs in a single season on two occasions for the club (1976 and 1981. During those thirteen years at Gloucestershire he played 206 First Class games, scoring over 16,000 runs. He averaged 49.79, hitting 49 100s and 76 50s. Sunil Gavaskar, a former Indian Test Opener, has said while commentating that the Indian players would often say to Abbas, "Zaheer Ab-bas karo", which means "Zaheer, stop it now" in Urdu and Hindi, referring to Abbas' free scoring.

Abbas retired from international cricket in 1985, and has officiated as a match referee in one Test and three ODI matches.

Abbas is known in Pakistan as the "Asian Bradman", a reference to former Australian great Sir Donald Bradman

Zaheer Abbas's career performance graph.

[edit] External link

Cricinfo page on Zaheer Abbas

Pakistani batsmen with a Test batting average above 40
Javed Miandad \| Inzamam-ul-Haq \| Mohammad Yousuf \| Saeed Anwar \| Zaheer Abbas
Shoaib Mohammad \| Hanif Mohammad \| Saleem Malik \| Saeed Ahmed \| Younis Khan