'I hope that nobody goes through what I went' - Mohammad Amir opens up on his premature retirement

For the past few months, Pakistan’s Mohammad Amir continues to be the focal point of discussion in the cricket fraternity. The pace merchant again grabbed all the limelight as he spoke at lengths about his decision of taking sudden retirement from gentlemen's game. In December last year, Amir announced his decision of retiring from One Day Internationals and T20 Internationals.

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Amir had already announced his retirement from the purest format shortly after the ICC 2019 World Cup. The 29-year-old’s decision of hanging his boots in the international circuit raised a lot of eyebrows as the speedster was one of the mainstays of Pakistan’s bowling line-up.

Amir represented Pakistan in 36 Tests, 61 ODIs and 50 T20Is, accounting for a total of 259 scalps. After announcing his retirement, Amir had blamed the head coach Misbah-ul-Haq for mentally torturing him and sidelining him from the Pakistan team. The 29-year-old has now elaborated his stance saying that it was one of the hardest decisions for him to make but he was left with no choice.

Amir also hoped that no other cricketer has to go through the ugly things that he underwent during his cricket career. Speaking to PakPassion.net, the speedster said, "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".

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"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."

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