LAHORE - Abid Ali, who emerged as ‘hero of Harare’ on the second day of the second Test against Zimbabwe, has dedicated the double century to his father Muhammad Arshad and teacher and mentor Shafqat Rana’s wife. 
Abid told The Nation that his father Muhammad Arshad has a great role in making him an international cricketer. “First of all, I am thankful to Allah Almighty for this feat. Whatever today I am is just because of all-out support, backing and prayers of my father and family. That’s why I decided to dedicate my double century to my father. I am also grateful to my teacher and mentor Shafqat Rana, whose great guidance transformed me into a professional player, so I would also love to dedicate this feat to his wife, who recently passed away.” 
He said the management has asked him to stay at the crease for a long time and play a big innings. “The partnership with Azhar Ali proved very fruitful and helped me score a century. Then little partnerships with other batsmen especially with Nauman Ali remained very useful for me to achieve this milestone of scoring 200 plus runs. Nauman Bhai especially gave me confidence and motivated me to go for 200 runs and thanks to Almighty, I succeeded in hitting double ton. 
“The double century is a good achievement for me and I am very glad for this feat. At the same time, I am feeling sorry for Nauman Bhai, who couldn’t complete his century and lost his precious wicket at a score of 97. But I am also very delighted that we managed to post a big total for Zimbabwe to chase and I am hopeful that we will succeed in clean-sweeping the Test series,” he added. 
Pakistani bowlers also bowled well and grabbed four wickets of Zimbabwe batsmen. On this, Abid said: “Our bowling department is also very good and they bowled really well not only in the first Test but also in the second one. The morning session is comparatively tough for batsmen so we are hopeful that our bowlers will take quick wickets and bowl them out as early as possible.”