A gifted young left-handed opener who threatened at one stage to solve Pakistan's perennial opening conundrum, Imran Farhat had a brief spell in the Pakistan side after success with the national under-19 and A sides. Farhat also evokes Saeed Anwar but only fleetingly; he bludgeons rather than times his runs. He was rather too cavalier in his early appearances in the Test arena, and was promptly discarded after the tour to New Zealand in 2000-01. However, he tightened his game and achieved much more success in the 2003-04 season. Tempering his impressive array of shots with better defensive technique, Farhat scored a deluge of runs in the home series against South Africa and New Zealand, being involved in a record four successive hundred partnerships with Yasir Hameed in the one-day internationals against New Zealand. He also notched up his first century in both Tests and ODIs during this season, and then went on to score a vital 101 in Pakistan's victory against India in the Lahore Test. But since the India series, he has fallen away. A mediocre series at home to Sri Lanka and away to Australia saw him falter, especially with the emergence of the other left-handed opener, Salman Butt. When Pakistan included only one specialist opener in the squad for the series against England in 2005 - Butt - seemingly it confirmed that Farhat, temporarily, was out of national reckoning. But as an opener in Pakistan, you are never out of national reckoning and sure enough Farhat was back for the final Test against India, where he scored a fifty. That performance saw him on the plane to Sri Lanka and an average series. But with openers becoming as rare as dinosuars in Pakistan, he was retained for the summer tour to England, where he again produced some mixed results. Despite failures in the first two Tests, a broken finger and a spate of dropped catches, he came back to score a cavalier 91 in the final, fateful Oval Test. He is Pakistan's Test opener, for now. He was dropped from the ODI team following Pakistan's tour to South Africa and was left behind for the World Cup as well as the Abu Dhabi series against Sri Lanka and the short tour to Scotland.

Farhat, however, was awarded a central contract which he duly signed but was then released upon his request and went on to sign a contract with the Indian Cricket League.
Osman SamiuddinAugust 2007

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Dec 5, 2007 Imran Farhat scored a match-winning 74 © Cricinfo Ltd

Dec 5, 2007 Imran Farhat receives his award from Ajit Wadekar © Cricinfo Ltd

Aug 2, 2007 Imran Farhat walks back after being dismissed in a practice match © Faras Ghani

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