Imran Tahir

Mohammad Imran Tahir (born 27 March 1979) is a South African former international cricketer.

A spin bowler who predominantly bowls googlies and a right-handed batsman, Tahir played for South Africa in all three formats of cricket, but preferred the Twenty20 International matches.

In 2005, aged 26, Tahir became a resident of South Africa.

He is married to Sumayya Dildar, a South African woman, and has represented South Africa after becoming eligible to play for them when he met his four-year residence requirement in April 2009.

Tahir 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 high score of 77 not out in a County Championship match against Somerset on 28 August 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On 8 January Tahir was called up to the South Africa squad in their Test series against England although he was then withdrawn one day later after Cricket South Africa revealed that he was not eligible to play.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.

For the 2010 season Hampshire signed Sri Lankan spinner Ajantha Mendis, replacing Tahir for the season.

Tahir represented Warwickshire for the 2010 season, and then represented Hampshire again until 2014.

He moved to the Highveld Lions in 2012.

On 15 June 2016, Tahir became the first South African bowler to take seven wickets in an ODI, and also the fastest South African to reach 100 ODI wickets (58 matches).

He is currently South Africa's leading wicket-taker among spin bowlers in both ODIs and T20Is.

On 17 February 2017, Tahir became the fastest South African to reach 50 T20I wickets.

On 4 March 2017, against New Zealand he recorded the most economical figures by a South African spinner in an ODI, with 2 wickets for 14 runs from 10 overs.

On 3 October 2018, he became the fourth bowler for South Africa to take a hat-trick in ODIs.

In January 2018, he was bought by the Chennai Super Kings in the 2018 IPL auction.

In October 2018, he was named in Nelson Mandela Bay Giants' squad for the first edition of the Mzansi Super League T20 tournament.

In March 2019, he announced that he would quit ODI cricket following the 2019 Cricket World Cup.

He represented his eighth English county club, when he joined Surrey in 2019, thus setting a new record.

He is widely known for his running celebration after every wicket he takes, known as The Marathon.

Imran Tahir was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and learnt the game while growing up there.

Being the eldest sibling, he started working at the age of 16 as a retail salesman at Lahore's Pace Shopping Mall on a meagre salary, to support his family.

His fortunes changed when he was selected during trials to represent the Pakistan U-19 cricket team, eventually progressing onto the Pakistan A side on some tours.

However, he failed to make the transition to the next stage.

He began playing county cricket in England but did not stay there for long.

He then moved to South Africa, which faced a perennial dearth of quality spinners.

In South Africa, he played domestic cricket for five years and lived "hand-to-mouth for the first two years."

As well as 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.

While Tahir has represented Pakistan Under-19 cricket team's and Pakistan A, he failed to win full international honours for Pakistan.

He took 26 wickets for the team in IPL 2019, winning the Purple Cap.

In July 2019, he was selected to play for the Amsterdam Knights in the inaugural edition of the Euro T20 Slam cricket tournament.

However, the following month the tournament was cancelled.

In September 2019, he was named in the squad for the Nelson Mandela Bay Giants team for the 2019 Mzansi Super League tournament.

In July 2020, he was named in the Guyana Amazon Warriors squad for the 2020 Caribbean Premier League.

Tahir was designated Captain of the Guyana Amazon Warriors in 2023.