Saqib Ali (born 14 April 1978) is a former Pakistani-born

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played for the

United Arab Emirates national cricket team The United Arab Emirates national cricket team ( ar, فريق الإمارات الوطني للكريكيت) is the team that represents the United Arab Emirates in international cricket. They are governed by the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) w ...

from 2006 to 2015, including in five

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

(ODI) matches. He captained them to the

ICC World Cricket League Division Two ICC World Cricket League Division Two forms part of the World Cricket League (WCL) system. Like all other divisions, WCL Division Two is contested as a standalone tournament rather than as an actual league. Unlike lower divisions, however, matches ...

title in 2007. Born in

Multan Multan (; ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan, on the bank of the Chenab River. Multan is Pakistan's seventh largest city as per the 2017 census, and the major cultural, religious and economic centre of southern Punjab. Multan is one of the List ...

, Saqib emigrated from Pakistan to the UAE in 1997, finding employment with NMC Health. In Pakistan, he had played two Tests and one ODI for the national under-19 team, as well as a single

List A List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

match for Rawalpindi A in November 1994 (aged 16). A right-handed middle order batsman, he made his national debut at the 2006 EurAsia Cricket Series, and scored his maiden first-class hundred the following year, against Scotland at

Sharjah Sharjah (; ar, ٱلشَّارقَة ', Gulf Arabic: ''aš-Šārja'') is the third-most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, after Dubai and Abu Dhabi, forming part of the Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman metropolitan area. Sharjah is the capital o ...

. He was appointed captain in a match against Bermuda in 2007 and made 142 in his second innings after a duck in the first. His highest score was made in 2008 when he struck 195 out of his team's total of 306 as the UAE went down to Ireland. Saqib retired from international cricket in August 2015, owing to a series of injuries.Amith Passela (26 August 2015)
"Injuries force UAE batsman Saqib Ali to walk away from international cricket"
– ''The National''. Retrieved 30 August 2015.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ali, Saqib 1978 births Living people Pakistani cricketers Emirati cricketers United Arab Emirates One Day International cricketers Cricketers from Multan Pakistani emigrants to the United Arab Emirates Pakistani expatriate sportspeople in the United Arab Emirates Emirati cricket captains Rawalpindi cricketers