Pakistan Cricket Players Biography : Umar Gul

Umar Gul Biography

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Umar Gul (Urdu:,Pashto: ) (born 14 April 1984) is a Pakistani
right arm fast medium bowler in cricket who has played Test matches,
One Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals for the Pakistani
cricket team. He has gained fame as one of the most successful bowlers
in Twenty20 cricket finishing as the leading wicket taker and bowler
in both the 2007 and 2009 Twenty20 World Championship tournaments.
Umar Gul is the second most highest wicket taker(74) in Twenty20
International cricket,only behind Saeed Ajmal.

Personal life

Gul was born in Peshawar of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of
Pakistan he was born in a middle-class family and frequently
played tape-ball cricket. People on
the street encouraged Gul to become an international cricketer as
they saw his excellent bowling.
On October 2010 Gul's family announced that he was to wed a Dubai Doctor.
The doctor is from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and was born there
as well. Gul's first daughter, Rehab Umar, was born in May 2012.In the
same month, Pakistan Army Commandos mistakenly raided Umar Gul's house
in Peshawar and arrested his brother Meeraj Gul on the charge of hiding
a wanted militant. However, the commandos later on apologized to Meeraj.Career

Early career

Gul was first called up for the team in April 2003, playing
four one-day matches at the Cherry Blossom Sharjah Cup against
Zimbabwe, Kenya and Sri Lanka,
where he took four wickets, and he was in and out of the one-day
team after that tournament. However,
he played the whole of the 2003–04 home series against Bangladesh,
making his Test debut and taking 15 wickets in the three Tests,
and took the second-most wickets of any Pakistani bowler in the series,
behind Shabbir Ahmed with 17. However, Shoaib Akhtar, who took 13 in
third place, only played two of the Tests.
Gul was retained for the ODIs against Bangladesh, taking a List
A best five for 17 in nine overs in the third match, and ended
with 11 wickets in the 5–0 series win. However, he could still
not command a regular spot, playing three of Pakistan's nine next
ODIs before finally getting dropped after one for 36 against New Zealand.

Test matches

He was recalled and played two Tests after that taking four wickets
in a drawn Test against New Zealand before coming in as replacement for
Shabbir Ahmed in the second Test of the three-Test series against India.
After coming on as first-change bowler, Gul dismissed Virender Sehwag in
his second over, and then bowled unchanged for 12 overs either side of
lunch to take five Indian top order wickets – including Rahul Dravid and
Sachin Tendulkar, who both had Test batting averages above 50, as did Sehwag.
Gul finished with five for 31 in his spell, earning him commendation from
Cricinfo journalist Dileep Premachandran, who praised his "control of line
and length",and he was also named Man of the Match despite conceding runs
at five an over in the second innings in a nine-wicket win.
After a length injury lay-off, which kept him out of international cricket
for nearly two years, Gul returned to the Pakistan fold in 2006.
Firstly with quiet away series against Sri Lanka then followed by a
tour to England in 2006. Gul was quickly made the lead bowler in the
side due to the injuries to other front line bowlers. Gul to 18 wickets
in four tests, justifying the selectors faith in him.
Later in 2006, against West Indies at home, Gul had perhaps his most
successful test series. He took 16 wickets in 3 tests, including notable
spells of reverse swing bowling. He was responsible for breaking
Ramnaresh Sarwan's toe with a dipping yorker.
Test appearances however remained few and far between due to injuries
and lack of test cricket for Pakistan.
In February 2009, Gul recorded his best test figures in the Pakistan team,
taking 6 for 135 on a flat pitch.
In July 2010, Pakistan faced England at Trent Bridge and were 147/9
in their first innings. Gul scored 30* before the day was called off
due to bad light. He returned the next day with Mohammad Asif and batted
with intent to add another 35 runs in five overs. This saw Pakistan avoid
the follow-on against England and therefore survive an innings defeat.
Gul then suffered a hamstring injury in the second test when he was touring
England in 2010 he was ruled out for three weeks that meant he would miss
the remaining two tests. However Gul managed to recover and became fit
enough to play in the fourth test However they decided to rest Gul for
the final test match despite the fact that he had recovered quicker than
expected.His next chance to play test cricket came against South Africa
in November 2010 when he took 3 wickets in a first innings and triggered
a South African collapse of 380 on a flat wicket. He took the crucial
wicket with an excellent inswinger against AB de Villiers

Twenty20

With injuries limiting Gul's test cricket participation, he made a
distinct change to his bowling set-up, making a focus on bowling in
the late overs of T20. He got his opportunity with the absence of
Shoaib Akhtar and Abdul Razzaq in the 2007 ICC World Twenty20 held
in South Africa. He bowled from the 13th over onwards and finished
the tournament with 13 wickets, becoming the leading wicket taker
ahead of Shahid Afridi and RP Singh.
In the 2009 ICC World Twenty20, he performed well, earning the mantle
from at least one pundit of "the outstanding seam bowler of the World
Twenty20". His five-wicket haul for just six runs, when Pakistan
defeated New Zealand, won especial acclaim. The spell made him the
first bowler in history to take a five wickets in a Twenty20
international, and he held the record of best T20 bowling figure
until 8 August 2011, when surpassed by Ajantha Mendis (6/16).
Mutterings were made about a possible correlation between ball
tampering and the exorbitant amounts of reverse-swing he was able
to extract, but he denied them categorically: "whenever an Asian
bowler performs and uses the reverse-swing, the Western cricketing
countries raise the issue of ball-tampering against them."
He was also part of the Pakistan team that lifted the trophy at
Lord's while also finishing as the leading wicket taker of the
tournament for the second consecutive time.
He gained a lot of wickets bowled, in particular with late reverse
swinging yorkers, which dip late to slide under the bat and leave
little room for batsmen to maneuver the ball. Consequently he has
also an excellent economy rate in this format of the game.
In February 2008, Gul signed with the Indian Premier League and was
drafted by Shahrukh Khan's Kolkata Knight Riders franchise for
US $150,000. He played in six matches, taking 12 wickets at an
average of 15.33, including a player of the match award in
Kolkata's final game in which Gul took 4–23 and scored 24 runs from 11 balls.
In December 2008, Gul signed with the Western Warriors to compete
in the Australian domestic 2008-09 KFC Twenty20 Big Bash tournament.
He performed very well in his debut match for the Warriors,
taking 4 wickets for 15 runs in a losing side.
He was among the most successful bowlers in the competition.
Despite not being available for the entire tournament,
he finished second top wicket-taker with 12 wickets.
Internationally, Gul has taken 47 wickets in 32 games at an average of 14.65.
He is the second leading wicket-taker in Twenty20
Internationals behind teammate Shahid Afridi.

One Day Internationals

Gul appeared in all three of Pakistan's group matches in the
2007 World Cup taking four wickets with an economy rate of 3.13,
only Shane Bond of those to deliver 100 balls was more economical.
He also appeared in all of Pakistan's matches at the 2007
ICC World Twenty20 taking 3/15 of 4 overs in the semi-final
victory over New Zealand. He took three wickets in the final
to finish as the tournament's leading wicket-taker.
Batting-skills
Despite being a bowler Gul can perform well as a lower order
batsman and has proved his ability as a quick.run-picker His finest
moment with the bat came in a test match against England in August
2010 when Pakistan were at 103/7 and Gul came into bat at 8.
He scored 29 off 30 deliveries, and when play ended that day,
two more wickets had fallen and the team were at 148/9.
Pakistan needed 11 more runs to avoid the follow-on, and Gul
then came in with his number 10 partner Mohammad Asif. Gul scored
34 runs in just 11 deliveries however his partner Mohammad Asif was
run out at the other end and Gul ended on 65 not out.

Injuries

However, Gul was then ruled out of the third Test with a back injury
which kept him out of cricket for an entire year. He returned to
play two games at the 2004–05 Faysal Bank T20 Cup, and played some
matches for Pakistan A and a Pakistan XI in warm-up games before
the Test matches against England the following season, but he was
not selected for the matches and has instead played three matches
with Peshawar at the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy.
Gul had signed a one year contract with Gloucestershire to play in 2007,
but the Pakistan Cricket Board failed to give them their permission.
Shortly after making a six-month come-back from a shoulder injury in
July 2010 Gul picked up a hamstring injury against England in August
but it wasn't too serious and he only missed the two Test matches.