I wasn’t getting the respect I deserved and that’s why I took the decision to retire: Mohammad Amir

Pace merchant Mohammed Amir is considered one of the best pacers produced by Pakistan in the modern era. The left-hander formed a Pakistan’s bowling line-up across all the formats and managed to rattle the opposition batters with his raw pace and swing. However, in a shocking development, Amir announced his retirement from international cricket in December 2020.

In 2019, just after the ICC World Cup, the 29-year-old hanged his boots in the purest format of the game citing workload management. Since then, Amir’s career witnessed a downfall as he soon started getting excluded from Pakistan’s team in ODI and T20Is too.

For the past months, Amir’s retirement from all formats has become a subject of interest for all the cricket enthusiasts as a lot of things have been said regarding the same. While Amir blamed Pakistan cricket team head coach Misbah-ul-Haq for destroying his career, the head coach also gave it back to the seamer.

Retiring from playing for your beloved country isn’t an easy step to take: Mohammed Amir

In the latest development, the left-arm speedster said that taking retirement was a tough call as it isn’t easy to let go of the opportunity of representing your career. However, his self-respect was being compromised which didn’t go well with him and the same prompted him to take the decision of retirement. The 29-year-old added that now he is focusing on his career and is in a happy space.

“Retiring from playing for your beloved country isn’t an easy step to take. I thought a lot about this decision, I spoke to those close to me, and only then did I reach this decision. If I go into all of the details and re-open all those chapters then it will get very ugly. I hope that our players, especially the youngsters in the future don’t have to face what I had to face as I don’t want our younger players to get disheartened and have to sacrifice their careers as I did,” said Amir as quoted by News 18.

“What matters most to me is respect and I felt that I wasn’t getting the respect I deserved and that’s why I took the decision to retire. The people in charge of Pakistan cricket have their job to do, they have their responsibilities and have their decisions to make, and I have my career to continue and look forward to, so we all should move on, as right now I am happy with my life,” he added.