Test debut or long-service reward? Usman Salahuddin finally gets his big break

About 90 minutes' drive away from Clitheroe, where Fawad Alam is turning the tears of another non-selection into runs and wickets in the Lancashire league, another long-ignored domestic giant is getting his due. On Friday at Headingley, Usman Salahuddin will step out to play his 100th first-class game. You will know it better as his first Test.

Salahuddin's wait has been no less frustrating than that of Alam. He first appeared for Pakistan in a pair of ODIs in West Indies in 2011, where he batted at seven and then at four, did little, and was gone. Since then he's played for several Pakistan A sides and is now on his third tour with the senior side.

And if it hadn't been for Babar Azam's broken arm, he wouldn't have been debuting. Even then, there was a chance that Fakhar Zaman, a white-ball opener, might have played in Babar's place in the middle order.

In announcing his selection Sarfraz Ahmed made it sound as much a reward for Salahuddin having been around for so long as batting form - he's played only in the two-day game against a second-string Leicestershire, in which he made 69.

Salahuddin's been there, but he's never been there. He got married just before this tour so perhaps that has brought a change of luck.

"You can't lose heart in cricket," he said a day ahead of the other big day. "You have to wait for your good times, which I have done. I'd like to give credit to the management because I've been with the team for a few tours now but they never let me get down. They kept practicing with me. Whatever weak points I had they've worked on with me."

Nobody can deny that, on the weight of his domestic performances, he deserves his chance. Over 6000 first-class runs at a healthy mid-40s average, seen by themselves, are impressive numbers.

But the strange, forever shifting nature - and unstable standard - of domestic cricket in Pakistan means it's difficult to really know how well anyone goes until you throw them out there. Some seasons they use Kookaburra balls and big runs are scored. Some, like last season, they use Dukes and no runs are scored.

Pitches, in general, have been deteriorating since the start of the century but this last season was especially poor. Runs in Punjab in the early season are more valuable than late-season runs down in the south of the country.

Salahuddin's big, breakthrough seasons were seven years ago - in 2010-11 he scored 1197 runs, averaging 66.50; the next year was even better with 1401 runs at nearly 80 (and seven hundreds). Since then he hasn't put together two big seasons back to back.

Only 11 of his 99 first-class games have been played in Sindh, where, broadly speaking, runs are easier to come by, so it could be said he scores tough runs. But his record against regional sides - usually with the weaker bowling attacks - is considerably superior than against department sides (of all the sides he has scored at least 200 runs against).

He's also moved around a lot, playing for five different department sides in 10 years and last season he played for a regional side, Lahore Whites.

The season just gone was a hellish one for batsmen and he averaged less than 38. But there was a point to it. "The Dukes ball has helped. The PCB used those this season because this tour was on, so it was good practice.

"Batsmen didn't score the kind of runs they would get usually so, though the Duke ball is difficult, it's been pretty helpful. I've enjoyed it quite a bit. It doesn't get old quickly and it keeps swinging."

Given how long and how many runs it's taken him to get here, the goal for now is just to stay as long as he can.

"I don't want to play just one Test. Like Younis Khan got 10,000 runs, or Inzi bhai'sperformances, those legends, I'm going to try and play as much as I can for Pakistan. I don't want to just play one Test and then relax. I want to play for a long time for Pakistan."