Aizaz Cheema - Pakistan - Bowler

A short but skiddy fast bowler from Pakistan, Aizaz Cheema made a late start to his career when he was picked for the tour of Zimbabwe at the age of 31 in 2011. This was a reward for his consistent performances in the domestic circuit, which included a brilliant season where he took 57 wickets in eight games in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy.

He celebrated the selection with a brilliant debut, where he picked up 8 wickets including 4 in the second innings to help Pakistan win the match. His figures of 8 for 103 is the second-best match analysis on debut for a Pakistan bowler. Cheema was retained for the ODI series, and continued to impress with good performances. He took 3 wickets in his debut game and put up a Man of the Match show in the final game of the series, picking up a match winning 4 wicket haul.

Cheema after having a good start to his Test career, had a dip in form during the England series in 2012. He picked up only 1 wicket in the 2 matches and was expensive against Sri Lanka as well. The selectors axed him from the squad due to those performances. Cheema had a successful Asia Cup in 2012 ,where he picked up 8 wickets in 4 matches, but was dropped soon after. Since then he has failed to make it to the National team and is found way down the pecking order with the emergence of Bilawal Bhatti, Anwar Ali, etc.

By Karthik Lakshmanan As of April 2014