Shabbir Ahmed is a Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

i cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er. He is a line-and-length

Line and length

Line and length in cricket refers to the direction and point of bouncing on the pitch of a delivery. The two concepts are frequently discussed together.-Line:...

 pace bowler who took eight wickets for 109 runs on his Test

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 debut against Bangladesh

Bangladeshi cricket team

The Bangladesh national cricket team is a national cricket team representing Bangladesh. The team is administered by the Bangladesh Cricket Board . Bangladesh is a full member of the International Cricket Council with Test and One Day International status...

 in the first of their 2003-04 three-Test series

Bangladeshi cricket team in Pakistan in 2003

Yasir Hameed became the second batsmen in Test cricket to score two centuries on debut, and the fourth Pakistani to score two centuries in one Test match.-Second Test: v :...

. He also had an impressive start to his One-Day International career after picking up three wickets (all three bowled out) with two wickets in his very first over, in his debut against the West Indies at Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

.

Style

Shabbir Ahmed is a tall (6'5"), Pakistani fast bowler. He extracts a great deal of bounce, even on lifeless wickets, and bowling from close to the stumps - much like Glenn McGrath

Glenn McGrath

Glenn Donald McGrath AM , nicknamed "Pigeon", is a former Australian cricket player. He is one of the most highly regarded fast-medium pace bowlers in cricketing history, and a leading contributor to Australia's domination of world cricket from the mid-1990s to the early 21st century...

 - allows him to stick to a tight wicket-to-wicket line. He seams

Seam bowling

Seam bowling is a phrase used for a bowling technique in cricket whereby the ball is deliberately bowled on to its seam, to cause a random deviation. Practitioners are known as seam bowlers or seamers....

 and cuts more than he swings

Swing bowling

Swing bowling is a technique used for bowling in the sport of cricket. Practitioners are known as swing bowlers. Swing bowling is generally classed as a subtype of fast bowling.-Physics of swing bowling:...

, often sharply and both ways and is a sound exponent of reverse swing.

One year ban

Until then he had taken 51 wickets in just 10 Tests, but in 2005 after playing the first Test

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 against England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 he was reported to the ICC

International Cricket Council

The International Cricket Council is the international governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from England, Australia and South Africa, renamed the International Cricket Conference in 1965, and took up its current name in 1989.The...

 for an illegal bowling action. Following an investigation into his action, Ahmed was banned from cricket for one year in December 2005.,,.

Return to cricket

As of 21 December 2006, having completed his one year term, Shabbir is once again eligible to play International Cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

. However if Shabbir is reported again, he will be suspended from bowling at international level until his action is reassessed. Currently Shabbir is playing in the Pakistani domestic competition.