'This Is The Last T20 Match Of My Career': When Rizwan Lost All Hope To Make A T20I Career

Mohammad Rizwan had a tremendous 2021. He became the first-ever batter to score 2000 T20 runs in a calendar year, led Multan Sultans to the PSL Title, contributed in Pakistan's brilliant run in the T20 World Cup, and ended up winning the ICC T20I Cricketer of 2021. 

However, it's not like Rizwan had an easy run. At the beginning of 2021, Rizwan was just another wicketkeeper from Pakistan trying to find his feet in the squad and looking for any role that team needed. 

From 2015 till 2020, Rizwan had scored just 313 runs in T20Is at an average of 22.35 and had a strike rate of 108.68. However, something changed for the wicketkeeper batter in December 2020, when Pakistan toured New Zealand to play three T20Is. 

"Before 2021 I was mostly on the bench, I didn't get that many opportunities and when I did, it was at No. 6 or 7," Rizwan told Cricket Monthly. 

"New Zealand series happened, the first match didn't go that well and neither did the second one. I remember speaking to Iftikhar (Ahmed) before the third game and I said to him, "This is the last T20 match of my career."

Rizwan revealed that he hasn't "said this in any interview before" but he "really did" think that his T20 career was finished. 

"I wasn't playing for my PSL franchise [Karachi Kings] at the time. I played in the National T20 tournament and Misbah [ul-Haq, then coach] gave me a chance after that, but there's a difference between the National T20 and international cricket. Already people were saying things like, "You are not international material" behind my back. 

Then I got this chance in New Zealand. The plan was always for me to open in that series. In the nets, I was opening. In the National T20 Cup, Misbah had said to me, "You open here." And for wicketkeepers in T20, you know, it's not that big a role. You maybe get 20-25 balls that come to you as a keeper, if that much. So Misbah said, "If we use you as an opener, maybe it'll benefit the team."

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Rizwan scored 89 in that match in just 59 balls to win the match for Pakistan. The wicketkeeper batter ended 2021 with 1326 T20I runs at an average of 73.66 and a strike rate of 134.89.