5 batsmen who did not live upto their potential

#4 Ahmed Shehzad

Shehzad is the umpteenth Pakistani batsman to come a cropper

Ahmed Shehzad bears a striking resemblance to Virat Kohli. But that wasn’t the reason this young batsman excited Pakistan fans way back in 2011 with his performance. He had shown bona-fide ability to score runs at the highest level and with a couple of ODI hundreds that year - one in New Zealand and the other in West Indies – looked a long-time prospect for Pakistan.

Unfortunately he fell a victim to Pakistan’s idiosyncratic selection policy just at the time his career was starting to bloom and once put off track by this setback, he took a long time to get back on it.

Shehzad’s debut came in 2009 but it really kick-started when he played as an opener in the 2011 away ODI series against New Zealand. A century in that series confirmed his spot for the upcoming World Cup. Unfortunately he couldn’t deliver on the biggest stage and was dropped during the tournament. But selectors retained faith in him and had him in the side for the ODI series in West Indies that took place shortly after. He repaid their trust by scoring a hundred in that series.

Then, strangely, he was dropped after the series and had to wait till 2013 to get back into the ODI side. This must have been hard and when he did get back into the team, it took him some time to regain his form. A hundred later in the year against South Africa in Port Elizabeth re-affirmed his promise and things started to look up again. He managed to get into the Test team too and with a hundred against Sri Lanka, showed he can succeed in that format also.

However, he was plagued by inconsistency, bad luck and lack of patience by the selectors. With few good scores interspersed with many low ones, he could not always retain his place in the team and had to make way for other talented young batsmen.

His Test career was jolted by a bouncer from Corey Anderson during a Test in Abu Dhabi when he was batting on 176. The ball hit him on the face before ricocheting on to the stumps thereby causing both a fracture and a dismissal. His Test career is yet to fully revive since that incident.

Like many other Pakistani batsmen, Shehzad has a good balanced stance and is an attractive stroke maker only lacking sometimes in the footwork. But his is also possibly a case of lack of enough application. With the likes of Babar Azam now hogging the limelight, it would be a great challenge for him to be the big hope for Pakistani batting again.