Owais Shah

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Personal information
Owais Shah
England
Full name	Owais Alam Shah
Nickname	Ace
Born	22 October 1978 (1978-10-22) (age 29)
	Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Height	6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Batting style	Right-handed
Bowling style	Right-arm off spin
International information
Test debut (cap 632)	18 March 2006: v India
Last Test	17 May 2007: v West Indies
ODI debut (cap 163)	10 June 2001: v Australia
Last ODI	13 October 2007: v Sri Lanka
ODI shirt no.	3
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1996 – present	Middlesex
Career statistics
	Tests	ODI	FC	LA
Matches	2	31	181	250
Runs scored	136	702	11913	6902
Batting average	34.00	26.00	43.00	33.18
100s/50s	0/1	1/4	32/60	11/41
Top score	88	107*	203	134

Balls bowled	0	54	1814	663
Wickets	–	2	21	17
Bowling average	–	25.00	58.80	37.76
5 wickets in innings	–	0	0	0
10 wickets in match	–	n/a	0	n/a
Best bowling	–	1/19	3/33	2/2
Catches/stumpings	1/–	8/–	139/–	84/–
As of 13 October 2007 Source: [1]

Owais Alam Shah (born 22 October 1978 in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan) is a cricketer who plays for Middlesex and has appeared for England in a number of One Day Internationals and two test matches.

1 Early career
2 Return to international cricket
3 Statistics
4 References
5 External links
6 See also

[edit] Early career

A cricketing prodigy as a teenager, he made his first-class debut at age 17 in 1996 and won the NBC Denis Compton Award in 1997. In early 1998 he Captained England to victory in the Under 19's World Cup in South Africa, and the following season he was captain of the England Under-19 cricket team for their "test" match series at home against Pakistan. Notable achievements at a young age led some to label him as the finest young English batting talent in 20 years,^{[citation needed]} and his selection for the England 'A' team that toured Australia in late 1996 at the age of 18 suggested he was on the verge of a call up to England's Test side. However, two poor seasons followed, and despite being capped in 2000, by the end of that season -- in which he made under 500 first-class runs -- he could no longer command a place in the Middlesex first team. However, he made a return to form in 2001, averaging 41.60 and making his ODI debut against Australia at Bristol. Later that summer he made 62 against Pakistan, and in 2001 also, Shah was named by the Cricket Writers' Club as their Young Cricketer of the Year.

[edit] Return to international cricket

Despite a fairly solid start to his international career, however, Shah could not produce the required consistency of form, making just one more fifty in ten innings from 2001/02 to 2002/03. He also suffered from a perception that his fielding was below par, something close to unforgivable in the modern one-day game, and he was dropped from the England side without having had a chance at Test cricket. In 2004, a year of success with the bat (1,336 runs at 53.44) was tempered by the loss of his Middlesex captaincy in mid-season after some poor results.

2005 brought much improved returns, as he was top scorer of the First Division of the County Championship with two weeks left to play, having made 1578 runs at an average of 65.75. At the end of the county season in September, Shah was being talked of as a possibility for England's winter tours of Pakistan and India.

He was selected for the England 'A' team tour of the West Indies that winter, but was called up to the squad for the first-team tour of India after England suffered several injuries. He made his Test debut in the third Test at Mumbai on 18 March 2006, making 88 in his first Test innings.

He returned to the England Test squad, after 15 months out, for the first Test match against the West Indies at his home ground of Lord's; however, he scored 6 and 4 in the two innings, in an otherwise productive England batting lineup. He was dropped from the squad for the second Test following captain Michael Vaughan's return to fitness.^[1]

Shah was, however, brought back for the ODI series, including two Twenty20 Internationals. While making little contribution with the bat in the first match, in which England were defeated, Shah hit a match winning 55 off 35 deliveries in the second, with England drawing the Twenty20 series 1:1.^[2] He was later made man of the match. He has changed his game somewhat in recent times, and is not the classical batsman that he was in his early years; however, he still possesses a wide range of shots, with the pull shot and the fierce slap through extra cover being the most prominent.^[3]

His maiden ODI century came against India at The Oval on the 5 September 2007, when he made 107* off 95 balls. Later in the same match, he bowled in an ODI for the first time, and with his 17th delivery, took his first ODI wicket, the victim being the Indian captain Rahul Dravid. Shah toured Sri Lanka with England in late 2007, and then played in the ODI series against New Zealand in early 2008. While he had a disappointing ODI series, he topped scored with 96 in the first warm up test match to enhance his claims to the test squad.^[4]