pakistanicricketpl: Mohammad Hafeez

Mohammad Hafeez Biography

Mohammad Hafeez (born October 17, 1980 at Sargodha) is a Pakistani cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm slow bowler. Hafeez generally opens the batting and has also opened the bowling in all three formats on several occasions.[1] Mohammad Hafeez also serves as Pakistan's national T20 captain.

Playing Style
As a player, Hafeez gives the team plenty of options: he usually bats aggressively at the top of the order, but his organised technique also means he can switch to defensive mode if required. He doesn't flight his offbreaks much, but his excellent control over line and length allows the captain to use him at almost any stage of an innings. He is also one of the better fielders in the Pakistan team, especially in the point region.

International career
Hafeez was one of the several young all-rounders the Pakistani cricket team turned to after their poor Cricket World Cup display in 2003, in which they were eliminated in the first round.
Hafeez failed to create a regular place for himself in the Pakistan in his first seven years in international cricket, primarily due to his inability to convert his starts into substantial scores. He scored plenty of pretty 30s and 40s, laced with some exquisite cover-drives, but that only helped cement the opinion that Hafeez may forever remain a player whose potential exceeds performance.
To a large extent, that changed in 2011, as Hafeez put in consistent displays with both bat and ball in all forms of the game. It actually started in the series against South Africa in November 2010, and then continued through 2011, a year which fetched him two centuries in Tests and three in ODI, apart from two fifties in Twenty20 internationals. He won an incredible ten Man of the Match awards in international cricket that year, and became only the third cricketer - after Sanath Jayasuriya and Jacques Kallis - to score 1000-plus runs and take 30 or more wickets in ODIs in a calendar year. He was also World No.2 bowler in ODI ranking.With Taufeeq Umar, he formed Pakistan's most stable opening combination in Tests, as his aggression at the top of the order became a perfect counterfoil to Taufeeq's defensive approach.

Captain of Pakistan T20 Team
On May 10, 2012, The Pakistan Cricket Board appointed Mohammad Hafeez as the captain of the T20 format of the game during the tour of Sri Lanka. Hafeez, who has reinvented himself as a reliable and prolific allrounder, takes over from Misbah-ul-Haq with Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) opting to axe the aging batsman from their Twenty20 squad.

Mohammad Hafeez