He is deemed unsuitable for ODIs and T20Is because he is more of a Test player but he has played more ODIs (38) and T2OIs (24) for Pakistan than Tests (3). He is seen as someone physically weak and fragile, bound to collapse any time, but he outperforms all contemporaries in the toughest fitness Test.
In a Cricketing encampment where the convenient excuse for under performance has been the changing batting number – although, that excuse was never needed for Younus, Misbah or Azhar Ali – he was asked to open the innings, for the first time in his life, in his very first Test and he became and still is the only Pakistani batsman to score a century on debut away from home. Six years on and he is yet to be considered good enough to play his 4th Test.
That’s Fawad Alam for you and that mysterious territory is Pakistan Cricket. With a First Class average of 56.71 in 125 matches and crossing the 50 mark in 75 times (24 hundreds, 51 fifties) out of 203 innings, he is still made to search for what he can do more to represent his country in Test Cricket.
He can’t play limited overs Cricket because he is a Test player and he can’t play Tests because he has a weak limited overs resume. He doesn’t seem physically fit to play and comes out as the fittest player. It can’t get any more mindboggling than this.
Perhaps, he has become the latest enigma of Pakistan Cricket, a mystery that the Pakistan Cricket Board is either unwilling or unable to resolve.
The writer is a Cricket enthusiast who dispenses his thoughts on www.fb.com/krick3r and tweets @krick3r