Mohammad Imran Tahir

A right-handed batsman and leg break bowler, Mohammad Imran Tahir currently plays for the Highveld Lions in South Africa. He was born on 27 March 1979 in Pakistan. He has represented Pakistan Under-19 cricket team and Pakistan 'A' but failed to win full international honours for Pakistan.

Apart from his first-class career in Pakistan, Tahir has had short spells with Yorkshire and Middlesex in county cricket as well as playing for Staffordshire in the Minor Counties Cricket Championship. He was a member of Hampshire's 2009 Friends Provident Trophy winning squad, taking 2/50 from 10 overs in the final against Sussex. Tahir made his career’s highest score of 77 not out in a County Championship match against Somerset on 28 August 2009. He also played for Hampshire in the 2011 English county cricket season.

For the 2010 season Hampshire signed Sri Lankan spinner Ajantha Mendis, replacing Tahir for the season. Tahir represented Warwickshire for the 2010 season, although he is contracted to play for Hampshire from the 2011 season onwards.

Tahir married to Sumayya Dildar, a South African of Indian descent, and represented South Africa after becoming eligible to play for them when he met his four-year residence requirement in April 2009. Tahir made his 100th first-class appearance in the 2009/2010 SuperSport Series when the Titans played the Lions. On 8 January Tahir was called up to the South Africa squad in their Test series against England although he was then withdrawn one day later after Cricket South Africa revealed that he was not eligible to play.

At the end of the 2009/10 season, Tahir moved from the Titans to the Dolphins. This was due to a lack of first-class cricket with the club, who preferred to play 23-year-old leg-spinner Shaun von- Berg. When Tahir was called into South Africa's squad for the final Test against England, national coach Mickey Arthur said, I'm not entirely sure what the issues are between him and the Titans, but the Titans obviously aren't going to pick him because they'd rather pick the young leggie they have. He holds the record for representing highest number of teams (27) in the world. He moved to the Highveld Lions in 2012.

Tahir qualified for South Africa on 1 January 2011, and was selected by them for the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Imran Tahir debuted for South Africa in a match against the West Indies on 24 February 2011 at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in Delhi. He took 4 wickets for 41 runs in 10 overs during his debut match.

Although he was part of South Africa's squad to play a five-match ODI series against India before the World Cup, Tahir did not make his debut. Captain Graeme Smith explained that this was because Tahir is someone we want to keep fresh and we didn't want to give people the opportunity to see too much of him.

In November 2012, after the Test match against Australia, Imran tahir was dropped and replaced by Robin Peterson but in October 2013 Imran Tahir made a comeback to test cricket when he took 5 wickets in an innings for the first time in a test match and guided South Africa to clinch victory against Pakistan by an innings and 92 runs in the Dubai Test, thus levelled the series 1-1. He took 8 wickets in the match.

At the 2014 ICC World T20, Tahir bowled his best figures of 4-21 in South Africa's nail-bite match against the Netherlands on 27 March 2014, and was awarded Man of the match.