The Pakistani all-rounder nicknamed Popeye after spinach made him ill
In 2005 Pakistan discovered why its all-rounder Abdul Razzaq kept feeling sick on the field: he was eating too much spinach. Teammates promptly started calling him Popeye. By then he had already become the youngest player in the world to take a Test hat-trick.
Razzaq grew up in Shahdara Bagh on the edge of Lahore, a suburb known for Mughal architecture, and took up fast bowling because of Wasim Akram. His break came on Pakistan's under-19 tour of the West Indies in 1996, where he took 17 wickets. He debuted in one-day internationals against Zimbabwe in November 1996, played his first Test against Australia at Brisbane in November 1999, and became a regular at that year's World Cup in England.
He was a right-arm fast-medium bowler and hard-hitting right-handed batsman. In Australia in 2000 he was player of the series in a tri-nation tournament with India and the hosts, taking 4 wickets as Pakistan defended just 184 at Brisbane and later hitting five boundaries in a row. That same year he claimed his Test hat-trick against Sri Lanka. He struck three ODI centuries, the highest 112 against South Africa in 2002, and in February 2006 became only the fifth player to reach 4000 runs and 200 wickets in ODIs. Finishing touches were a speciality: on 29 November 2003 his unbeaten 47 from 22 balls chased down New Zealand's 291 at Lahore.
His career zigzagged. His bowling pace faded around the 2003 World Cup, and injuries kept interrupting him. Left out of the 2007 World Twenty20 squad, he announced his retirement on 20 August 2007, then reversed it that October. He joined the rebel Indian Cricket League with Hyderabad Heroes, left it in September 2008, and in 2009 became the first ICL player whose ban the Pakistan board lifted, arriving as an injury replacement and helping win the T20 World Cup.
Later stints included the Melbourne Renegades, where Mark Waugh mocked him as a cardboard cut out for seeming uninterested. Razzaq retired from international cricket in 2013, coached domestic sides, and in 2018, aged 38, announced a return to first-class cricket.
Source: Abdul Razzaq (cricketer)
