Pakistan vs England 2022

‘I told her tomorrow is my debut’, next day she passed away’- Naseem Shah opens up on her mother’s tragic death

A 16-year-old Pakistan pacer, Naseem Shah became one of the biggest talking points in the cricket fraternity when he made his Test debut for Pakistan in Australia in 2019.

However, on the day of his debut, it was learned that his mother had passed away. But despite that, the Pakistan fast bowler gathered all the courage and went on to play that Test match. Three years after the incident, he shed light on the same.

In an interaction with Nasser Hussain ahead of the third Test, Naseem Shah opened up on the traffic demise of his mother.

“I was too attached with my mom. When I was 12, I left home because of cricket. I shifted to Lahore. When my debut came, she called me a day before and I told her, ‘tomorrow is my debut’. She didn’t use to watch TV, she didn’t understand cricket. But I told her, ‘you must watch the game tomorrow because I’m playing, I’ll be live on TV’.

For the 16-year-old, it wasn’t easy to endure all the suffering and pain that followed after the tragic incident. He revealed that he used to take a lot of medicines and called his international debut as ‘the toughest day of his life’.

“For the next six-to-eight months, I struggled so much. No one thinks about what’s going inside you. I used to have a lot of medicines, I saw my mom everywhere. I used to think about her a lot.”

“Whenever you play for Pakistan, everyone expects performances from you. I had a lot of injuries during that time as well, so it was a tough time. I learned from it, though. I’m stronger now. My (Pakistan) debut was the toughest day of my life. I can manage when I’m not performing well now, because I know how tough it was,” Naseem said further.

Meanwhile, Naseem Shah has been ruled out of the third Test against England because of a shoulder injury. The Pakistan pacer had also missed the second Test because of the same reason and will continue to be unavailable for the final Test match.