5 lesser known bowlers with a match-winning performance in ODIs
Cricket is a very competitive game with several international games being played every year. A lot of players come, and several players go every year but only a handful of names remain with us for long. Only a few lucky ones are able to cement their legacy and leave a mark of greatness on the world of cricket for us, the fans, to remember for years to come.
In this world of competition, there have been instances where players showed glimpses of their incredible talent but couldn't sustain it over a greater period of time and thus hardly anyone remembers them now. In this issue, we would be looking at some of those bowlers who are not remembered a lot by cricket fans, but they at least have a match-winning performance to their names.
The list includes players from four different continents and five cricketing nations. There are two players from Asia and one each from Africa, Australia, and the American side. The one thing common about these stars is that they all clicked when even the most famous names in their sides failed to deliver but, unfortunately, hardly anyone remembers them today.
#5 Rana Naved-ul-Hasan: 6-27 vs India, 2005
The Pakistani pacer gained attention back in 2005 during Pakistan's tour of India where the Green shirts managed to win the series by a margin of 4-2. His big day came during the third ODI of the series held at Jamshedpur where he picked up a six-wicket haul against a strong batting lineup consisting of names like Tendulkar, Sehwag, Dravid, Ganguly, and Dhoni.
Naved-ul-Hasan's performance was the turning point of the series for Pakistan as the team managed to grab their first win of the six-match series which was also their last chance to win the series. Rana grabbed the Man of the Match award for his performance which helped Pakistan in attaining a big victory by a margin of 106 runs. His economy rate during the innings was 3.12 which was way better than his career economy rate of over 5.5 in ODIs.
Overall, Rana played 74 ODIs for Pakistan but failed to repeat the same performance again. In fact, that was the only five-wicket haul for the speedster in his ODI career. He ended up with 110 wickets at an average of over 29 and a strike rate of over 31. He last played an ODI for Pakistan in 2010 against Australia at Perth.