KARACHI: Young cricketer Moazzam Ali Baig, who went to Africa from Pakistan to earn a living, ended up at Malawi’s national team and is now upbeat about making his mark on the international cricket horizon.

Sharing his interesting journey during a telephonic conversation from Malawi, Baig said he played under-19 cricket in Karachi and represented various clubs before moving to Malawi in 2008.

“I started off from the Rashid Latif Cricket Academy in Karachi and played club cricket from United Gymkhana, Alamgir CC and Larosh Cricket Club,” recalled Baig. “After playing zonal U-17 and U-19 events, I graduated to senior inter district tournaments in 2005. I joined departmental cricket team of Investigation Police in 2005 and kept on playing various local tournaments too until 2007,” he added.

Born in 1985, Moazzam shifted to Malawi, a country in southeast Africa, and started working at a local company as a logistic manager and still doing the same with a different organisation.

“In 2009, I came to know about the cricketing activities in the city and joined a local club, Llilongwe Muslim Sports Club. I caught the attention of the local press by frequent all-round performances in regional leagues,” the right-handed Baig said who bats in the top order and bowls off-breaks.

It was in August this year when the International Cricket Council (ICC) conducted trials in the region. In the first phase, trials were held in four different cities including Malawi, while the second phase of trials, of the shortlisted candidates, were organised in Malawi on August 17th.

“I was picked amongst the first batch of 22 players and later was selected for the final Malawi squad for the ICC World T20 cup qualifiers as well as the Africa Cup qualifiers. I have now been appointed as the vice-captain of the team as well,” Baig said.

The Malawi mens national cricket team will participate in the 2018 World T20 Africa sub-regional (Group C) qualifiers, scheduled from October 26th to November 5th, and in Africa Cricket Association’s Africa T20 cup qualifiers from November 6th to November 16th.

Both these tournaments will take place at the BCA Ovals in Gaborone, Botswana with teams other than Malawi are Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, St. Helena, Swaziland and Zambia.

Andre Botha, former Ireland cricketer, is the CEO of Malawi Cricket Union as well the head coach of the Malawi men’s national team.

“We have been training hard at the camp for the upcoming events where our target is to get the final two qualification spots into the African regional finals, to be held in May 2019 in Uganda,” added Baig.

Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Kenya have already qualified from the two sub-regional qualifiers held in Nigeria and Rwanda. Two teams will advance from Group ‘C’ sub-regional qualifiers to global qualifiers for the 2020 ICC World T20.

“Still a long way to go for Malawi cricket but we are ready to keep working tirelessly,” concluded Baig.

It is pertinent to mention that apart from Baig, batsman Sami Sohail and wicket-keeper Mohammad Khurram are the other Pakistanis in Malawi’s national team.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2018