Tauseef Ahmed

Who is Tauseef Ahmed?

Tauseef Ahmed is a former Pakistani cricketer who played in 34 Tests and 70 ODIs from 1980 to 1993. He sported a trademark afro and moustache for most of his career.

Tauseef Ahmed made his first-class debut in early 1979 putting up a decent show for PWD against PIA. That was to remain his only first-class game for just over a year until his neighbour, Javed Sadiq, managed to get him a chance to bowl at the Pakistani tail-enders before the 1980 Karachi test against Australia. Tauseef was impressive enough to prompt Zaheer Abbas, the newly appointed Pakistani captain Javed Miandad himself and even the manager Mushtaq Muhammad to pad up check him out. Elsewhere, during the same net session, both Imran Khan and Sarfraz Nawaz too were extremely impressed and those few hours earned Tauseef his first test cap. The hard-work Ilyas Khan, whom he replaced, would never play for Pakistan.

In a startling debut, Tauseef took 7 for 126, dismissing Kim Hughes twice and Greg Chappell once, sharing 18 wickets with Iqbal Qasim. At the time, he did not even know the names of the opposing Australian players when he made his debut.