Pakistan Cricket Players: Rashid Latif

Rashid Latif Biography

source(google.com.pk)
Rashid Latif (Urdu: راشد لطیف) (born October 14, 1968 in Karachi) was a Pakistani cricketer. He started playing for the Pakistani national team in 1992 after the World Cup. He impressed the selectors by hitting a fine 50 in his Test debut. This however did not cement his place in the national squad as he was throughout his career in competition with another Pakistani wicketkeeper named Moin Khan. This led to ongoing changes of wicket-keepers for the next decade. In 1996, he announced retirement after differences with some team players and the team management. He came back shortly and became the captain of Pakistani cricket team in 1998. Soon however, again due to differences, he was dropped from the team and again replaced by Moin. Latif remained out of the national squad until 2001 when after a string of poor performances, the Pakistani team replaced Moin Khan (who was the captain) with Rashid . After coming back into the squad, he somewhat cemented his place in the squad by keeping the wicket and giving a string of good batting performances. The highlight of his career came when after the 2003 Cricket World Cup, he was announced the captain of the Pakistani team. Under him, Pakistan successfully experimented with several new players and the team gave positive results. He was also involved with uniting the players through his captaincy skills both on and off the field. However, differences between Latif and the team management again surfaced in 2003-2004 which saw him the captaincy to Inzamam-ul-Haq. He was omitted from the squad and since has been out of the team despite his attempts to get back into squad during 2003-2005. As of April 2006, Rashid Latif have retired from first class cricket as he toured with Pakistani senior players to play against Indian senior players in April 2006. This series is played between players who have retired from the sport. Also, according to statistics available on cricinfo's website, it can be seen that Rashid Latif has not participated in first class cricket since 2005. His last international outing was in 2006 when he played for England's Lashings cricket club.