Waqar Younis: “We asked Amir to go and play some matches in domestic cricket to get back to his best again. But Amir said you insulted me by saying I should play domestic. So that’s why he retired from cricket in 2020”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Pakistan head coach Waqar Younis has revealed that left-arm seamer Mohammad Amir felt insulted when he was asked to play domestic cricket.
Waqar noted that Amir wasn’t performing up to the mark at the time, but ultimately decided to retire from international cricket in 2020 as he felt he should have been in the national team.
It should be noted that the 33-year-old came out of retirement to represent the men in green at the 2024 T20 World Cup, where he took seven wickets in four matches at an average of 10.28 and an economy rate of 4.50.
Not long after, he ended his international career once again.
“Amir’s performance was not up to the mark. At that time, we already had Shaheen (Afridi), Haris (Rauf) and lots of other options. So we asked Amir to go and play some matches in domestic cricket to get back to his best again. But Amir said you insulted me by saying I should play domestic. So that’s why he retired from cricket in 2020,” Waqar was quoted as saying on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Pakistan team recently faced South Africa and drew the Test series 1-1 before going on to register 2-1 victories in both the T20Is and ODIs.
They were then involved in a three-match ODI series against Sri Lanka and won 3-0.
Pakistan are now taking on Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in a T20I tri-series, which will conclude on November 29.
Pakistan squad for Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe T20I Tri-Series: Salman Ali Agha (captain), Abdul Samad, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Salman Mirza, Naseem Shah, Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Usman Khan (wicketkeeper), Usman Tariq
Reserves: Haris Rauf, Sufiyan Muqeem
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