Pakistan’s ace pacer Mohammed Amir’s decision to hang his boots at the age of 28 took the cricketing world by surprise.
Amir was the chief weapon in the deadly Pakistan bowling arsenal. Though the Rawalpindi cricketer had his cricketing years marred with a spot-fixing scandal, he made a comeback after five years.
The left arm-seamer is still remembered for his fiery spells that bamboozled the opposition batters.
At the time of drawing curtains over his prestigious career, the stalwart had blamed head coach Misbah-ul-Haq and bowling coach Waqar Younis for his early retirement.
In an interview on Tuesday, Amir stated that bidding farewell to cricket wasn’t easy for him and refused to divulge any details.
“Retiring from playing for your beloved country isn’t an easy step to take. I thought a lot about this decision, I spoke to those close to me and only then did I reach this decision. If I go into all of the details and re-open all those chapters then it will get very ugly. I hope that our players, especially the youngsters in future don’t have to face what I had to face as I don’t want our younger players to get disheartened and have to sacrifice their careers like I did,” Amir told PakPassion.net.
However, when quizzed further, the 29-year-old revealed that he was treated irreverently by Pakistan’s cricket team management. But emphatically added that he was currently satisfied with how his career had shaped.
“What matters most to me is respect and I felt that I wasn’t getting the respect I deserved and that’s why I took the decision to retire. The people in charge of Pakistan cricket have their job to do, they have their responsibilities and have their decisions to make, and I have my career to continue and look forward to, so we all should move on, as right now I am happy with my life,” Amir remarked.
Expounding further, the Changa Bangial-born brought to light the mental pressure on the players representing the national side and asserted that his compatriots were too intimidated to speak anything against the management.
“Yes, I was suffering from mental pressure, and I would be very surprised if I was the only one who has gone through this. Some players are too frightened to do anything about it or speak up about it because there are a lot of things which are outside the control of players. If the team management isn’t giving a player any respect, then that is going to affect the player,” Amir adumbrated.
Speaking about his case, in particular, the veteran pacer reckoned that there was a communication gap between him and the administration that took a toll on his mental health.
“When there is a communication gap between the team management and the players then things will head in the wrong direction. There was a big communication gap between the management and I, and this was very badly handled and really affected me and my mental health,” Amir concluded.
