Daily Times

LAHORE: Pakistan Test opener Abid Ali has begun his rehabilitation after undergoing two angioplasty procedures last week. He has been discharged from the hospital and since shifted to a hotel where he has begun his post-surgery rehabiliation. He will continue to stay in Karachi, away from his home in Lahore, as he has been advised against travelling as a precautionary measure for two weeks. Abid, 34, was withdrawn from a Quaid-e-Azam Trophy match abruptly after he complained of chest pain while batting on 61 against Khyber Pakhtunkhwa last week and was taken to hospital. He was diagnosed as a case of Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) and underwent a stenting procedure in his artery.

On Monday he tweeted a video that showed him walking on a treadmill. “Alhumdulilah, getting back in the momentum as per the doctor’s instructions,” he wrote. “A big thank you for the immense love and support shown by my family, fiends and followers. Inshallah I will recover soon. Keep praying.” The PCB medical team is liaising with an interventional cardiologist in Karachi to follow up on Abid’s treatment as he is a centrally contracted player and one of the key fixtures in the Pakistan Test line-up. He recently had a successful outing in Bangladesh, where he was Player of the Series after scoring 263 runs at 87.66.

In Karachi, he was playing for Central Punjab in his sixth first-class game this season and had scored 778 runs at an average of 86.44 with three hundreds. On the last day of a game at UBL Complex in Karachi, he had crossed a half-century when he had shown discomfort around his shoulder and chest area before he was rushed to the hospital. Abid has been the highest run-getter in Tests for Pakistan since his debut in 2019, and in 2021 he is fifth in the world with a tally of 695 from nine matches, including a double-hundred against Zimbabwe in Harare. He made his debut in Rawalpindi in 2019 after spending 12 years in domestic cricket for 7116 runs in 106 first-class games. He made his Test debut at the age of 31 and began with a century, and also became the only player in history to reach three-figures on both Test and ODI debuts. Neither the PCB nor Abid has made any comment yet about his future in the game. The PCB refused to divulge the exact nature of his medical condition but previously James Taylor, the former England batter, was forced to retire from cricket immediately after being diagnosed with a serious heart condition called ARVC (Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy).