Yasir Arafat the domestic cricketer is more popular than the international cricketer. He has a huge fan base in the English county with him featuring for Sussex, Kent and Lancashire.

Arafat first burst into the international scene in February 2000 with the ODI squad against Sri Lanka. He was tried for a little while but couldn’t deliver quality goods and was soon out of the side. He could never establish himself since then and was often called up as an injury cover in the side and he managed only 4 wickets in 11 games throughout his career.

In 2004, Arafat took five wickets in six balls against Faisalabad for Rawalpindi in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy. He became the fourth player to achieve this rare feat in the history of first-class cricket across the globe, next only to Bill Copson (1937), William Henderson (1938), and Pat Pocock (1972).

Yasir Arafat spent his time wisely when he wasn’t playing for the country. He flew to Scotland as replacement for Rahul Dravid and played for them in their domestic structure in 2004 and 2005. It was then that he was signed in 2006 by Sussex and spent a sizeable time with Kent from 2007 to 2008. Arafat was back with Sussex in 2009. He jumped to Surrey CCC in 2011, represented Lancashire in 2012 and then played for Somerset the next year.

The right-handed all-rounder made his T20I debut against Bangladesh and has played a few games, including the World T20 in Sri Lanka in 2012. However, he has not played for Pakistan again.

He became a bit of T20 specialist soon after and started travelling to places to play tournaments. He has played in the Bangladesh Premier League for Barisal Burners in 2012 and has also represented Perth Scorchers in the 2013/14 Big Bash League. With 12 wickets at 14.75 in the tournament, Yasir was pivotal in Perth's victorious triumph. The club showed the faith in the veteran and retained him next year. A hard working cricketer, he evolved as a tremendous death-overs expert and emerged as one of the hot-buys for teams across various T20 leagues.

A few months later, Yasir migrated to Kent to pursue his county career. In September 2014, he penned a deal with Hampshire and was qualified to represent the club as a non-overseas player because he was married to an Englishwoman.

Having been left out of the inaugural edition of PSL, the all-rounder signed for Sagittarius strikers in the MCL in 2016 where he was one of the youngest players to feature in the tournament. His tryst with switching clubs in UK continued when he re-signed a contract with Somerset on loan. In 2017, Yasir was picked up by Chittagong Vikings in the Bangladesh Premier League draft.

By Sriram AS