Imran Nazir is a Pakistani batsman in cricket who represents the Pakistan national cricket team
in Test cricket,
One Day International and Twenty20
cricket. Nazir made his debut in Test cricket
on March 1999, against Sri Lanka at Lahore in
Pakistan and a few days later, he made his One Day International debut against the
same opposition at Visakhapatnam in India. He played in 8 Test
matches between 1999–2002 and secured a spot in the Pakistan squad since 2002.
He also played in One Day International arena, but he could never cement his
place in the squad. The emergence of several Pakistan opening batsmen such as Mohammad
Hafeez, Yasir Hameed, Taufeeq Umar
and Salman Butt
kept him out of the national side. However he displayed excellent cricketing
performances in First class cricket.
Nazir made his return to the national team in the
second One Day International against South Africa in February 2007 during Pakistan's
tour of South Africa. He impressed the Pakistan national selectors
with his innings of 57 runs from just 39 deliveries, though he struggled to
score runs during the rest of the tournament. Nazir was named in Pakistan's squad for the 2007 World Cup.
He scored 160 runs against Zimbabwe in Pakistan's
last match during the 2007 Cricket World Cup, after being
knocked out by Ireland.

It was the second highest score by a Pakistani batsman
and the eighth highest score by any batsman in World Cup history and his 8
sixes equaled the World Cup record of Australian batsman, Ricky Ponting.
It was also the highest runs he scored in List A
cricket. He now remains a regular member of Pakistan's Twenty20
squads. In 2008, Nazir signed for the Indian Cricket League and played for the Lahore Bad
shahs. He scored 111 runs not out, off just 44 deliveries, against
the Hyderabad Heroes in the third of the best of
three finals of the tournament and helped his team to victory. After signing up
for the Indian Cricket League, his chances of ever playing again for Pakistan
looked slim. However, on 2 February 2009, a Pakistani court suspended the ban
on Indian Cricket League players, which paved the way for Nazir to make a
return to the One Day International and Twenty20 squad during their tour of Sri
Lanka in August 2009. He was given another chance against New Zealand two
T20I's held in Dubai which Pakistan won 2-0. Next time, he was given a chance
against Australia in only T20I in Australia but could not bat much. He showed
the same form against England in February 2010 in two T2OI's and was
consequently dropped from the Pakistani side. Since then, he has played two
National T20 cups. He was selected for the Hong Kong Sixes tournament 2010 in
Hong Kong as a member of Pakistani squad. There again, he showed very bad form
but worst of all, in the final which was inevitably in Pakistan's favor was
lost due Imran Nazir's bowling. 46 was required from the last 8-ball over but
Imran Nazir gave away 48 runs in 7 balls.

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