Inzamam played 120 Tests, 378 ODIs and 1 T20I match for Pakistan.
Inzamam-ul-Haq. (File Photo: IANS)
Former Pakistan skipper Inzamam-ul-haq, who holds the record of scoring the second-highest individual score in a Test inning for the country, has stated he never had any ambitions of breaking Hanif Mohammad’s feat.
Hanif’s 337 runs against the West Indies in 1958 is the highest individual score by a Pakistani cricketer while Inzamam stands second in the list when he scored 329 against New Zealand in Lahore in 2002.
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In that match, Inzamam — while running out of partners towards the end of the innings — decided to go for the big shots and in the process, got out falling short of surpassing Hanif’s record by just 8 runs.
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“I remember asking the last man if he can hang around for a while. The expression on his face pretty much told me that it was all down to me. He wasn’t confident at all,” Inzamam said in a video posted on his YouTube channel.
“So I started going for the big hits and eventually got caught near the boundary line. If I would have had a proper batsman at the other end, I would surely have carried on.
“I honestly didn’t have any ambitions that I would break Hanif bhai’s record. Had it been a world record it would have been another thing. But breaking a fellow Pakistani’s record never really attracted me,” he added.
Inzamam, who played 120 Tests, 378 ODIs and 1 T20I match for Pakistan, further said that after the match against the Black Caps, he when for the post-match press conference wherein he was asked abut his inning.
“Someone asked me how sad I was to miss the record. I told them ‘should I be happy about scoring 329 runs or be sad about not scoring those 8 runs’?” Inzamam said.
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