Yasir Shah Expresses Desire to Play against Virat Kohli

Star Pakistan leg-spinner Yasir Shah has expressed the desire to play against Team India skipper Virat Kohli in a bid to give his best against the world-class batsman in the contemporary.

Yasir is optimistic to give his best for the national team in the upcoming fixtures, as he has been a regular player in the Test fold.

“I try to perform in every match I play for my country,” Yasir was quoted as saying by Dawn.com

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On the other side, the 31-year-old Swabi-born Yasir further revealed he is looking forward to making it to the limited-overs fold following the remarkable performances in the Test cricket.

Interestingly, Yasir is bound to fly to Australia – to feature in the impending 2017-18 Big Bash League which will be kicking off on December 19 at Showground Stadium in Sydney when Sydney Thunder will wrestle in the curtain raiser against Sydney Thunders. As Yasir is working on the flipper and his googly, he wants to make full use of experience on the Australian soil in the foreseeable future.

“I am going for Big Bash, and hopefully I will perform well and make a comeback in the national squad,” Yasir asserted.

On November 15, this year, Yasir was picked by BBL franchise Brisbane Heat as a replacement player for youngster Shadab Khan. Recently, Yasir surpassed Indian ace-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin for being faster to reach 150 Test scalps.

Moreover, Yasir, who has been working hard in nets to give his best, is further eyeing another feat of quickest to 200 wickets lesser Tests than Ashwin. The slow bowler in the form of Yasir requires 35 scalps to go past Ashwin in seven Test matches to reach the mark of 200.

“I am very hopeful to become the fastest to get 200 Test wickets,” Yasir maintained.

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Back at home, Yasir has lauded the efforts of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for providing the better facilities in the contemporary times while making things look better in the professional field.

However, he admitted the fact that, Swabi hasn’t witnessed any quality facility which further saw him failing the Yo-Yo test owing to the endurance-level test.

“I have come from Swabi and did not have many facilities for fitness. Therefore, I couldn’t achieve the set target but later, when I gave the fitness test, I cleared it,” Yasir added.

In the ongoing premium first-class domestic tournament Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, Yasir represented Sui Northern Gas and Pipelines Limited for his second match of the season in which he managed to pick five wickets before the match ended in a draw in Karachi.

Concluding, Yasir has praised Shadab for showing the great character and maturity to keep performing at the top-level cricket while adding the latter could excel across formats with the ball.

“I always feel happy to see him performing for Pakistan in ODIs and T20s and believe that he will take some time to start performing in Test matches as well,” Shah concluded.

Interestingly, Yasir was the chief protagonist to help Pakistan in sealing their first-ever Test series win on the Caribbean soil. He has 13 five-wicket haul and eight four-wicket haul under his belt in 41 Test innings.

In 28 Test matches, Yasir claimed 165 wickets at an average of 29.44. And he also played 17 ODIs followed by two Twenty20 Internationals since he made his appearance in September 2011 against Zimbabwe at Harare.