Abdur Rehman

Born on March 1, 1980 in Sialkot, Abdur Rehman made his international debut at the age of 26 against West Indies. He is not a big spinner of the ball but makes up for that with subtle changes in pace and accuracy.

Rehman came into the ascendancy in 1999 when he grabbed a five wicket haul and a six wicket haul in successive matches against the South Africa U-19 team playing for Pakistan U-19. With Saqlain Mushtaq, Danish Kaneria, Shahid Afridi, Arshad Khan and Shoaib Malik in the team, Abdur Rehman could not break into the playing XI.

It was an impressive debut when he finally arrived on the scene though. Rehman kept a tight leash on the Windies batsmen and ended his quota of overs with impressive figures of 2/20. These are also his best ever one day figures till date. Rehman played in 5 World Cup matches in the 2011 edition and it was a surprise that he did not feature in the knock-out matches.

Rehman announced himself on the world stage on his Test debut with identical figures of 4/105 in both the innings against South Africa in October 2007. He was dropped after the 2 match series though and had to wait for 3 years for his next Test appearance. He has been impressive ever since then though and has a rich haul of 95 Test wickets in just 20 matches.

In 2012, along with Saeed Ajmal, Abdur Rehman terrorized the strong England batting line-up. He bagged 19 wickets from 3 matches at an average of 16.73 and thereby helped Pakistan to register their first ever series whitewash against England. In the same year he turned up for Somerset in the English county and took 9 for 65 in an innings against Worcestershire at Taunton. He was later banned from cricket for 12 weeks after testing positive for cannabis during his stint with Somerset.

Rehman is no mug with the bat either as evidenced by his knock of 60 against South Africa at Abu Dhabi in 2010 to help Pakistan avoid the follow-on. He formed a potent pair with Saeed Ajmal. Playing the role of the second fiddle, Rahman also had his share of the ruins in many contests.

However, the selectors looked beyond him towards the end of 2014 and post that he hasn't donned the Pakistani colours. The emergence of Yasir Shah and Zulfiqur Babar also did not help his case. A come back looks highly unlikely but stranded at 99 Test wickets, he would at least want one more go