Centurion Kamran Ghulam made the most of his Test debut on Tuesday as he struck a century and became only the 13th Pakistan player to reach the three-figure mark on debut in the red-ball format.
However, Ghulam had to wait for an extended period of time for the moment as he "kept getting selected and then omitted from squads".
There was a lot of desperation brewing inside the right-handed batter before it all came out as he reached his century with a boundary.
"I'd been waiting for my chance a long time but I never gave up," Ghulam was quoted as saying after the end of the day's play in Multan on Tuesday, October 15. "I had been waiting for my chance. That's all I thought about. I kept being selected and then omitted from squads, and all I used to think about was how to take the chance I'd been given."
The scenario was not ideal when he walked into bat with the score 19/2 and had to script a rescue act with opener Saim Ayub. Ghulam also copped a lot of criticism when he was selected to bat at number four - a slot which belonged to Babar Azam during his time with the Test side.
However, Ghulam trusted the grind he had put in first-class cricket and the hard work "paid off" for him.
"When I came to the wicket we'd lost two wickets. But I wanted to play with a positive mind like I do in first-class cricket. That was at the back of my mind, and I wanted to play my natural game," he said.
"I've scored a lot of first-class runs," the 29-year-old added. "I didn't care about the venue or the team, I just needed to make my debut. I knew I had a lot of hard work behind me, and thankfully that work has paid off for me."
