Former Pakistan pacer Mohammad Amir, who retired from international cricket in December 2020, has been talking about the lack of support for players from Pakistan’s team management for a long time. Now he has cited Jasprit Bumrah and the Indian team’s example to highlight the issue in Pakistan cricket.
The 28-year-old said in an interview to Cricket Pakistan that Bumrah got support from the Indian team management despite some hiccups in his career.
“I think it is not the right mindset to look at the performance of only four or five matches. If you remember, [Jasprit] Bumrah had only one wicket in 16 matches when he was playing the Australia series but nobody questioned him because they knew that he is a match-winning bowler. That was the time they [Indian team management] should have supported him and they did that,” said Amir.
“You are given the job to help the player when he is not performing and not just discard him from the side. If it’s like this, then we should give you an entire team made up of players like Cristiano Ronaldo so that you can sit back and relax and do nothing,” he added.
Amir also went on to talk about his decision of announcing his retirement from international cricket at such an early age. He said that he assessed everything carefully before taking that step.
“I carefully looked at all my options and assessed the situation before taking the decision about retirement. I’m enjoying cricket and spending time with my family and currently have no plans about taking back my retirement,” Amir said.
“If it was only about my performance, I would have never taken the decision about retirement. But their [team management] statements about me regarding my retirement from Test cricket really hurt me. I have no personal issue with them as they are my elders and legends of the game,” he added.
Amir has represented Pakistan in a total of 36 Tests, 61 ODIs and 50 T20Is, and has claimed 119, 81 and 59 wickets in the formats respectively. He is still active in other cricket as he continues to play in T20 leagues like the Pakistan Super League.
