It is a very sad day for me as I announce that I am leaving cricket after 16 years. It is very sad because I have only known cricket but it is the right decision.

I am pleased to have been given the opportunity by the board chairman to be able to play one final Test and then retire. It was my idea to go out this way.

I spoke to the board and selectors and the first Test was originally offered to me but I wasn’t mentally ready to come back to Test cricket then. It was my idea to play in Lahore and then say ‘Thank you very much’.

It was my wish to make 10,000 Test runs but the atmosphere here is now different, because the young boys are there and are doing well, especially in South Africa at the Twenty20 World Cup, where they put in a good effort. This is why I have made the decision; it is for the best for the future of Pakistan cricket.

I need a century against South Africa to have a set of Test hundreds against every country I have played against so it would be a good thing to make a century and beat Javed Miandad’s record but more importantly it would be good for Pakistan to win the game and draw the series.

I didn’t see all of the Karachi Test but I did watch a few sessions. There were quite a few positives to take from the game like Abdur Rehman’s eight wickets and Younis Khan’s super hundred in the second innings.

It’s definitely a sad time now because for the last 15 or 16 years I have been playing cricket but one day you decide that you need to leave cricket and that day has come. This solution is the best idea.

I am really grateful to the board for their gesture as nobody else has been able to leave the game like this. Not Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Saeed Anwar or Javed Miandad, it has not been the tradition. No previous board chairman has shown the kind of respect that Nasim Ashraf is showing to me by allowing me to leave the game in this way.

It’s a good thing and I hope other (long-serving) players in the future can be treated in the same way. Insh allah I can make a century and Pakistan win.