Fawad Alam bids adieu to Pakistan cricket and seeks career in USA

The Pakistan middle-order batsman Fawad Alam has decided to end his 15-year Pakistani career in order to play in the Minor League Cricket T20 tournament. The veteran Pakistan batter will be seen representing the Chicago Kingsmen team in the T20 tournament as a local player. The left-handed batter is not the first Pakistani to make this decision.

The veteran left-hand batter played against Sri Lanka in May 2007 in Abu Dhabi and also made his T20I debut against Kenya in Nairobi on September 4, 2007.

Two years later, in July, when Pakistan and Sri Lanka faced off at the P Sara Oval in Colombo, he made his Test debut. The opportunities for the left-hand batter were very scarce due to the presence of batting legends like Mohammad Yousuf (at first), Azhar Ali, Younis Khan, and Misbah-ul-Haq in Pakistan's middle order during Test matches.

Overall, the Pakistan batter has played 19 Test matches for Pakistan, scoring 1011 runs overall at an average of 38.88, including five hundred and two half-centuries. With more matches in ODI cricket, he was given more opportunities in the white-ball formats.

The Southpaw amassed 966 runs for Pakistan in 38 ODIs at an average of 40.25 along with a century and six half-centuries. The 37-year-old also had a good number of T20 International opportunities, but he was only able to score 194 runs with a strike rate of 114.79.

Not the first one to take this step

Fawad is not the first player from Pakistan to make the decision. Several players from the country including the Sami Aslam, Hammad Azam, Mohammad Mohsin, and Saif Badar among others have already shifted to the USA in search of more as well as better opportunities which they unfortunately did not get in their own nation.

In addition to it, the continuous flow of players into USA cricket is certainly not a good sign for Pakistan cricket as there have been younger players who also have cited this to be one of the opportunities to get a settled career in the USA.