Yusuf Adam Abdulla (born 17 January 1983) is a retired South African

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. He played first-class cricket for the Dolphins and had previously represented the

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locate ...

South Africa A The South Africa A cricket team is a national cricket team representing South Africa. It is the second-tier of international South African cricket, below the full South Africa national cricket team. Matches played by South Africa A are not Test ...

and the Rest of South Africa. A Left-arm fast-medium bowler, Abdulla was named in the Emerging Players squad to take part in the 4 Nations tournament in 2007 and played in the following years competition as well. He was currently one of South Africa's leading domestic-competition bowlers. He made his international debut against Australia in the 2nd Twenty20 International at

Supersport Park Centurion Park is a cricket ground in Centurion, Gauteng, South Africa. It is also known as SuperSport Park since television company Supersport bought shares in the stadium. The capacity of the ground is 22,000. The Titans cricket team have pl ...

on 29 March 2009, he took 1/16 from 3 overs; his first International wicket was

Ricky Ponting Ricky Thomas Ponting (born 19 December 1974) is an Australian cricket coach, commentator, and former cricketer. Ponting was captain of the Australian national team during its "golden era", between 2004 and 2011 in Test cricket and 2002 and 20 ...

. He was subsequently added to the Kings XI Punjab's Indian Premier League squad following an injury to Jerome Taylor.

Early life

Yusuf Abdulla belongs to a Muslim family and was raised in Lenasia, a suburb located in the South of Johannesburg, he played for his high school in Gauteng before his family shifted to Dundee in KwaZulu Natal. He was picked by Yashin Ebrahim of the KZN academy to be trained directly under him. And after giving a solid performance in the 2006–07 season in the Pro-20 in which he got 9 wickets at an average of 12.0 he was selected for the High Performance Centre in Pretoria as one of the 20 amateurs to train at the National Academy. He is of Indian origin as his mother is from the city of

Surat Surat is a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The word Surat literally means ''face'' in Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of the river Tapti near its confluence with the Arabian Sea, it used to be a large seaport. It is now ...

in Gujarat, India.

Domestic career

Yusuf Abdulla made his domestic debut for KwaZulu-Natal against Border on 16 February 2006 at Durban just after his return from The National Academy in the 2007–08 Season. Abdulla impressed with his performance for the Dolphins in the Pro 20 with a tally of 10 wickets at an average of 13.

International career

Yusuf Abdulla got his international call on 29 March 2009 when he was included in the 20-20 side to play against Australia at

Centurion A centurion (; la, centurio , . la, centuriones, label=none; grc-gre, κεντυρίων, kentyríōn, or ) was a position in the Roman army during classical antiquity, nominally the commander of a century (), a military unit of around 80 ...

. Other than that Yusuf Abdulla played just one more international game and took only 2 International wickets for South Africa. Abdulla was also the part of the South Africa's 2009 T20 World Cup Squad but did not get a chance.

IPL career

In the 2009 IPL Abdulla was signed up as a replacement player. Yusuf's performances in the first half of the 2009 season created quite a sensation and gave his career a temporary boost. He ended the tournament with 14 wickets at an average of 17.21. In the following season Kings II gave him a contract of $50,000.

Retirement

Abdulla retired during the 2010/11 season citing injury. Abdulla had lost his domestic contract after injury and had no swing or pace

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Abdulla, Yusuf 1983 births Dolphins cricketers KwaZulu-Natal cricketers Living people South African people of Indian descent South African people of Gujarati descent South African cricketers South African Muslims South Africa Twenty20 International cricketers Punjab Kings cricketers