Azhar's back for T20 stint

Azhar Mahmood, star of the Inaugural Twenty Cup win back in 2003, has returned to the Oval for this year’s Friends Life T20 campaign.

With the former Pakistan all-rounder becoming a British Citizen back in 2011, he will be available for all of the Twenty 20 campaign, and can be selected in the final X1 with both overseas players Graeme Smith and Ricky Ponting.

Azhar spent 6 seasons with the club as overseas player from 2002 to 2007, and was a firm favourite with the fans, and it was a shame to see him leave after the 2007 Twenty 20 campaign to allow Harbhajan to come to the club.

 

Everyone knows the qualities that Azhar has. His ability at both the start and end of a Twenty 20 innings with the ball is unquestioned, leaving him the 4^th highest wicket taker of all time in the shortest form of the game with 190. But it isn’t just his bowling that makes him one of the great T20 players, with his destructive batting winning many games for the variety of teams he has played for around the world. 2 hundreds and a strike rate of 136.57 speak for itself.

One reason for the signing of Azhar is due to the likelihood that at least one of Tremlett, Dernbach and Meaker will be involved in the England set up, which makes it a smart move from Adams. It also allows for the extra selection of a batsman, which is key in the T20 format if your top order don’t fire. And if on form, it might be our best looking T20 line up since we won the competition 10 years ago. A possible 11 of Smith, Davies, Ponting, Roy, Solanki, Wilson, Azhar, Ansari, Batty, Meaker, Dernbach looks very exciting indeed, and hopefully we can qualify out of the group for the first time since before Azhar left the club in 2006.

A question mark that may be raised by some fans and members of the media is that Azhar is no spring chicken anymore, with the 38 year old doing no help to the average age of the squad. There may also be questions over whether he has still got the ability to do what he has done before. And when it comes to his batting, there is no question that he is less consistent than he used to be, but he always seemed to rise to the occasion when he played against us for Kent over the last few years. He has however started well with the ball in this year’s IPL. Playing for the Kings X1 Punjab, he has taken 5 wickets so far in 4 matches, at his usual low economy rate of just over 6. And that is what he will also bring: control with the ball. Something that you cannot rely on with Meaker, and something we missed when Nannes was here last year.

Overall, I think that it is a good signing by Adams, even if it is pushing the salary cap, as he will add exactly what we have been missing in Twenty 20 since… well, since he left 6 years ago. Welcome back Azhar.