Dropped from Pakistan’s Test team last year, Abdullah Shafique earned a second chance with a century in Port of Spain.
Dropped from the Test squad due to poor form, there is no better way to describe Abdullah Shafique’s return to Test cricket than to call it dramatic.
Shan Masood was forced to miss this second Test after suffering a finger injury in the first Test. Shafique made the emergency call up to the squad, and did not disappoint. On the second day of the Test, he scored a magnificent century.
He was dropped from the Test team in October 2022, and has not looked back since filling his opportunity with both hands.
He walked in as the only wicket to fall for a score of 34 after the host West Indies first innings total of 344. With the total, he took on the role of a Test team opener, and chose to adapt, something which he did extremely well by resuming his scoring at a perfect pace to earn his sixth Test century 111* from 193 balls.
He was unbeaten at the end of the day’s play, systematically scoring 272 runs with the skipper Babar Azam to have Pakistan leading by 272 for two.
There is a long way to go for the remainder of the Test match, but Shafique has without a doubt put himself in the mix, scoring yet another ton, and taking his first steps in the right direction to hopefully reigniting his consistent form after a dry Espn of little to no runs.
Since scoring just 280 runs in eight Tests between 2024 and now, with an average of 18.66, is a shocking drop in form for a player who averaged 47.5 and scored over 1600 runs between 2021 to 2023, with hundreds against two of the best bowling attacks in Test Cricket (England and Australia).
Pakistan’s batting coach, Asad Shafiq, who was also a Test batter, was glad to see Shafique’s form making a swift return.
“Abdullah has been scoring heavily in domestic cricket and has taken that opportunity,” the batting coach said.
“For me, the hallmark of the innings was the way he put away bad balls and left good balls.”
His father, Shafiq Ahmed, who also played First-class cricket in Pakistan, was always positive and encouraged his son to keep a positive mindset when runs were hard to come by.
“You can always work on the technical side of the game with team coaches, but the most important is to remain positive. I have always told him the same thing.”
Now, Pakistan Test cricket fans can hope to see Shafique build on his performance against the West Indies and retain his place in the Pakistan Test team.
