Ajaz Akhtar (born 1 September 1968) is a former Pakistani-born British

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 ...

er. Akhtar is a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball, ball with a cricket bat, bat to score runs (cricket), runs and prevent the dismissal (cricket), loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since Septembe ...

who bowls right-arm

medium pace Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. T ...

. He was born in

Bahawalpur Bahawalpur () is a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan. With inhabitants as of 2017, it is Pakistan's 11th most populous city. Founded in 1748, Bahawalpur was the capital of the former princely state of Bahawalpur, ruled by the Abbasi fa ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

. Upon coming to the United Kingdom, he was educated at Deacon's School,

Teesside University , mottoeng = Deeds Not Words , established = 1930 – Constantine Technical College1969 – as Teesside Polytechnic 1992 – gained university status , type = Public , endowment = £0.23 m (2019/20) , chancellor ...

University of Hertfordshire The University of Hertfordshire (UH) is a public university in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. The university is based largely in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its antecedent institution, Hatfield Technical College, was founded in 1948 and was ident ...

and Durham University. Akhtar made his debut for

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the ...

in the 1990 Minor Counties Championship against Staffordshire. From 1990 to 2011, he represented the county in 147 Minor Counties Championship matches. He also represented the county in 56

MCCA Knockout Trophy The National Counties Cricket Association Knockout Cup was started in 1983 as a knockout one-day competition for the National Counties in English cricket. At first it was known as the ''English Industrial Estates Cup'', before being called the ...

matches from 1991 to 2010. Akhtar also represented Cambridgeshire in

List A cricket 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 numb ...

, where he made his debut in that format of the game against

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

in the

1991 NatWest Trophy The 1991 NatWest Trophy was a limited-overs English county cricket tournament, held between 26 June and 7 September 1991. The competition was won by Hampshire who beat Surrey by 4 wickets in the final at Lord's. Format The seventeen first-cl ...

. From 1991 to 2004, he represented the county in sixteen List A matches, with his final List A appearance coming in the 2004 Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy against

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

. In his sixteen List A matches, he scored 278 runs at a

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

of 23.16, with a single

half century One half ( : halves) is the irreducible fraction resulting from dividing one by two or the fraction resulting from dividing any number by its double. Multiplication by one half is equivalent to division by two, or "halving"; conversely, ...

high score of 78. In the field he took 6 catches. With the ball, he took 23 wickets at a bowling average of 24.78, with best figures of 4/28. He resigned as Cambridgeshire captain at the end of the 2010 season, before retiring midway through the 2011 season. He took over 500 wickets for Cambridgeshire.

References

External links

Ajaz Akhtar
at

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Ajaz Akhtar
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Akhtar, Ajaz 1968 births Living people Cricketers from Bahawalpur Pakistani emigrants to the United Kingdom Alumni of the University of Hertfordshire Alumni of Durham University Alumni of Teesside University People educated at Deacon's School English cricketers Cambridgeshire cricketers Punjabi people