Imran Tahir

Mohammad Imran Tahir (Punjabi: عمران طاہر; 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.

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 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 team 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."