On this week's ICC World Radio Show, former Pakistan captain and one of
the most destructive openers Saeed Anwar reflects on his career in which
he scored 12,904 international runs, including 31 centuries and 68
half-centuries.Saeed, who played 55 Tests (seven as captain) and 247 ODIs (11 as
captain) between 1989 and 2003, says: "I have no regrets from whatever
cricket I played and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The good thing about my
career was not about individual performances but collectively the
Pakistan team won a lot which is the most satisfying part. The most
memorable thing for me was that I played in an era when Pakistan had its
best-ever side.High and lows are part of a batsman's life, especially for an opener.
The best teams in my era were India and Australia and my objective was
to score against these two teams. I was lucky enough to score against
both the sides.In Tests, Saeed averaged 59 against Australia and 58.80 against India
while his average against the two countries in ODIs was 23.55 and 43.5,
respectively.Saeed also relives memories of his magnificent 194 in an ODI against
India in Chennai in 1997 (a record until it was equaled by Zimbabwe's
Charles Coventry in August 2009 before it was broken by Sachin Tendulkar
in 2010) and then his 188 not out in the second innings of the Kolkata
Test against the same opposition in 1999."My style was a bit different. I was never a kind of a person who would
score big runs and set individual records. My main aim was to play such
cricket which could entertain the spectators and crowd, while playing
for the team at the same time."The best thing about these two innings was that we won on both
occasions. I don't see any value in making big runs, establishing
records but not winning matches. A player should play such an innings
that his side should win."I really rate Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting very high because whenever
they have scored runs, their teams have mostly won," says Saeed who
started his career with a pair against the West Indies in Faisalabad in
1990.Saeed also speaks about his all-time favourite cricketer, batsmen he
admires most, the most difficult bowlers he faced in his career and his
most memorable international innings.The show can be used in whole or part by radio stations that want free
cricket content for editorial use, while the public can also download it
straight from www.icc-cricket.com or from iTunes.Also on the show, noted historian Gideon Haigh takes a walk down memory
lane and discusses some of the lowest scores in Test cricket.He says: "Australia scored 23 against Yorkshire on the 1902 tour of
England. On the same tour, Australia was bowled out for its lowest Test
score ever to date of 36. Curiously, Australia went on to win that
series 2-1 in one of the great Test engagements of all time."Just because you have been bowled out cheaply once does not mean you're a bad side."The lowest score of 26 is by New Zealand. Those kind of scores could
have been expected more in the old days when a professional side like
England took on the then amateur teams like New Zealand. But in the
modern day of professionalism and enormous amounts of preparations,
these are rare occurrences because there is general uniformity of
standards."The Cape Town Test also showed what an unpredictable and glorious game Test cricket is."The United Arab Emirates (UAE) coach Kabir Khan also figures in the show
and discusses his side's preparations for the ACC Twenty20 Cup which
will be staged in Nepal from 3-11 December. Ten sides will participate
in the tournament and the top three sides, apart from Afghanistan, will
qualify for the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier 2012 which will be staged
in the UAE from 13-24 March
