Asif Ali (; born 1 October 1991) is a Pakistani professional cricketer playing for the

Pakistan national cricket team The Pakistan national cricket team or Pak cricket team, often referred to as the Shaheens (), Green Shirts, Men in Green and Cornered Tigers is administered by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). The team is a Full Member of the International ...

. In

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

, Asif represents Northern, and he plays for

Islamabad United Islamabad United ( ur, ) is a Pakistani professional Twenty20 franchise cricket team that competes in the Pakistan Super League (PSL). It was the inaugural champion of the Pakistan Super League. The team is based in Islamabad, the capital ci ...

in the

Pakistan Super League The Pakistan Super League (PSL) is a professional Twenty20 cricket league contested during February and March of every year by six teams representing six cities of Pakistan. The league was founded on 9 September 2015 with five teams by the Paki ...

. He is one of thirty-three players to be awarded a central contract for the 2018–19 season by the

Pakistan Cricket Board The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is a sports governing body for cricket in Pakistan responsible for controlling and organising all tours and matches undertaken by the Pakistan national cricket team. A member of the International Cricket Counc ...

(PCB).

Early life

Asif was born on 1 October 1991, in

Faisalabad Faisalabad (; Punjabi/ ur, , ; ), formerly known as Lyallpur (Punjabi, Urdu: لائل پور), named after the founder of the city, but was renamed in 1977 in honour of late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. It is the 3rd largest city of Pakis ...

, Pakistan Before cricket, he used to work as a

labourer A laborer (or labourer) is a person who works in manual labor types in the construction industry workforce. Laborers are in a working class of wage-earners in which their only possession of significant material value is their labor. Industries e ...

in an

iron foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

Career

Misbah-ul-Haq ; born 28 May 1974) is a former Pakistani cricket coach and former international cricketer. Misbah captained Pakistan in all formats and is former head coach and former chief selector of the Pakistan national team. A late bloomer, Misbah was a midd ...

has played an instrumental role in his development as a cricketer and initially picked him as a power-hitter in the 2011 Super 8 Twenty20 Cup when he was a captain of the

Faisalabad cricket team Faisalabad Cricket Team was one of the eight regional first-class cricket clubs, based in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Its limited overs team was called Faisalabad Wolves. Kit colours are White for first-class cricket matches and Green for one-day and 2 ...

. He was the leading run-scorer for Faisalabad in the

2017–18 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy The 2017–18 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy was the 60th edition of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, Pakistan's domestic first-class cricket competition. It was contested by 16 teams representing eight regional associations and eight departments, and took place ...

, with 369 runs in six matches. He also played in the

2017 Everest Premier league The 2017 Everest Premier League, also abbreviated as 2017 EPL, and branded as TVS EPL 2017 was the second edition of the Everest Premier League, a professional men's domestic Twenty20 cricket competition in Nepal. The tournament was scheduled to ...

for Pokhara Rhinos. In April 2018, he was named in

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

's squad for the

2018 Pakistan Cup The 2018 Pakistan Cup was the third edition of the Pakistan Cup, a List A cricket competition which was contested between five teams. It was held from 25 April to 6 May 2018, with all the matches played at the Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad. Federal ...

. He scored the most runs for Punjab during the tournament, with 328 runs in four matches. On 3 June 2018, he was selected to play for the Edmonton Royals in the players' draft for the inaugural edition of the

Global T20 Canada The Global T20 Canada is a 20-over cricket tournament played in Canada. The first edition of the tournament took place during June and July 2018 with six teams competing. Each team featured four local Canadian cricketers in each squad, along wi ...

tournament. In October 2018, he was named in

Cape Town Blitz Cape Town Blitz were a franchise team of the South African Mzansi Super League (MSL) Twenty20 cricket tournament. The team was based at the Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town. Cape Town Blitz played in the first two editions of the MLS in 2018 ...

's squad for the

first edition The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants. First edition According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a b ...

of the

Mzansi Super League The Mzansi Super League (MSL) was a Twenty20 cricket (T20) franchise league held in South Africa. The competition was established in 2018 by Cricket South Africa (CSA) as a replacement for the failed T20 Global League, but only two editions wer ...

T20 tournament. In March 2019, he was named in

Sindh Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...

's squad for the

2019 Pakistan Cup The 2019 Pakistan Cup was the fourth edition of the Pakistan Cup, a List A cricket competition which was contested between five teams. It was held from 2 to 12 April 2019, with all the matches played at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. The Pakis ...

. In September 2019, he was named in the squad for the

team for the

2019 Mzansi Super League The 2019 Mzansi Super League, also known as the MSL 2.0, was the second edition of the Mzansi Super League (MSL) Twenty20 (T20) franchise cricket tournament in South Africa. It started on 8 November and ended on 16 December 2019. Jozi Stars wer ...

tournament. In September 2019, he was named in Northern's squad for the

2019–20 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy The 2019–20 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy was a first-class domestic cricket competition that took place in Pakistan from 14 September to 31 December 2019. Habib Bank Limited were the defending champions. However, after the new domestic structure annou ...

tournament. In November 2019, he was selected to play for the

Dhaka Platoon The Dhaka Dominators (Dhakaiya/ bn, ঢাকা ডমিনেটর্স) is a franchise cricket team that plays in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), representing the country's Dhaka City, Dhaka. The team was originally established in 20 ...

in the 2019–20 Bangladesh Premier League. In July 2020, he was named in the

Jamaica Tallawahs The franchise Jamaica Tallawahs is the representative team of Jamaica in the Caribbean Premier League of cricket. It was one of the six teams created in 2013 for the inaugural season of the tournament. The Jamaica Tallawahs play their home gam ...

squad for the

2020 Caribbean Premier League The 2020 Caribbean Premier League (CPLT20) or for sponsorship reasons, Hero CPL 2020 was the eighth season of the Caribbean Premier League, the domestic Twenty20 cricket league played in the West Indies. All matches were played in Trinidad and ...

. In October 2020, he was drafted by the

Jaffna Stallions Jaffna Kings, formerly known as Jaffna Stallions, are a franchise cricket team which plays in the Lanka Premier League (LPL). On December 16, 2020, the team won the inaugural Lanka Premier League 2020 Championship and are the current title hold ...

for the inaugural edition of the

Lanka Premier League The Lanka Premier League (abbreviated as LPL; , ) is a professional cricket league in Sri Lanka in Twenty20 format contested every year by teams representing Sri Lankan cities from 2020. The league was founded by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) in 201 ...

. In January 2021, he was named in Northern's squad for the

2020–21 Pakistan Cup The 2020–21 Pakistan Cup was a List A cricket competition that took place in Karachi, Pakistan from 8 January to 31 January 2021. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were the defending champions after they beat Baluchistan. However, after the new domestic stru ...

. He was picked by St Kitts & Nevis Patriots for CPL 2021. In December 2021, he was signed by

following the players' draft for the

2022 Pakistan Super League 2022 Pakistan Super League (also known as PSL 7, or for sponsorship reasons HBL PSL 2022) was the seventh season of the Pakistan Super League, a franchise Twenty20 cricket league which was established by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in 20 ...

. In July 2022, he was signed by the

Colombo Stars Colombo Stars, formerly known as Colombo Kings, is a franchise Twenty20 cricket team based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, that competes in the Lanka Premier League. Ashoka Pathirage, a Sri Lankan businessman, owns the team. The team was supposed to be ...

for the third edition of the

. In August 2022, he was signed by the

Hobart Hurricanes The Hobart Hurricanes are an Australian professional men's T20 franchise cricket team based in Tasmania, Australia. They compete in Australia's domestic T20 cricket competition known as the Big Bash League, which is a league where many in ...

for BBL 12.

International career

In Mar 2018, he was named in Pakistan's

Twenty20 International A Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of cricket, played between two of the international members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), in which each team faces a maximum of twenty overs. The matches have top-class status and are the ...

(T20I) squad for their series against the West Indies. He made his T20I debut for Pakistan against the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

on 1 April 2018. He made his ODI debut for Pakistan against

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

on 13 July 2018. In May 2019, he was named in Pakistan's squad for the

2019 Cricket World Cup The 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup was the 12th Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament contested by men's national teams and organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was hosted between 30 May ...

, after the

(PCB) named their final fifteen-man squad for the tournament. Ali struggled to make an impact in the first three years of his international career, and was often sidelined from the team.

2021 ICC T20 World Cup

In September 2021, he was named in Pakistan's squad for the

2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup The 2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup was the seventh ICC Men's T20 World Cup tournament, with the matches played in the United Arab Emirates and Oman from 17 October to 14 November 2021. The West Indies were the defending champions, but were eventua ...

. His selection was criticized by many people including ex-cricketers but he proved his selection right by scoring crucial runs against

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. He won the

man of the match In team sport, a player of the match or man of the match or woman of the match award is often given to the most outstanding player in a particular match. This can be a player from either team, although the player is generally chosen from the winn ...

award for scoring unbeaten 25 off 7 balls against Afghanistan. Asif Ali won the Player of the Month award in November 2021 for his match-winning performances for Pakistan during the T20 World Cup.

Asia Cup 2022

He was named in the Pakistan's squad for the Asia Cup 2022. On September 8, 2022, he was fined 25% of match fees for breaching Level 1 of the ICC Code of Conduct during the match against

after he got involved in a heated exchange with Afghanistan's bowler Fareed Ahmad.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ali, Asif 1991 births Living people Cricketers from Faisalabad Pakistan One Day International cricketers Pakistan Twenty20 International cricketers Cricketers at the 2019 Cricket World Cup Barbados Royals cricketers Cape Town Blitz cricketers Faisalabad cricketers Faisalabad Wolves cricketers Islamabad United cricketers