Pakistan’s 18-member squad for the five-match T20 series once morest New Zealand is going to be announced in the next day or two. The series will be played from April 18 to 27 in Rawalpindi and Lahore.
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) organized a physical training camp in Kakul under the supervision of Pakistan Army trainers to prepare for the series in which 29 players participated.
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The main objective of the camp was to keep the players fully fit for the busy international season. After the home series once morest New Zealand, the Pakistan cricket team will play the T20 series in England and Ireland, following which its biggest test will be the T20 World Cup.
if we New Zealand Looking at the likely squad for the home series once morest, what might be of most interest would be the return of Imad Wasim and Mohammad Amir.
This return is not unexpected for me but for anyone Pakistan Super League After the (PSL) both of them retired from international cricket and made themselves available for selection, it became clear that both of them would definitely be included in the final squad.
There is also a new face to be seen in the team and that is Usman Khan, but before that I would like to talk regarding Imad and Amir.
Everyone will remember well that Imad retired last year preferring franchise cricket over Pakistan team while Amir parted ways with Pakistan team accusing the then team management of mental torture.
He did not miss any opportunity to criticize and mock the then head coach Misbah-ul-Haq and bowling coach Waqar Younis and said in a TV interview that everyone else mocks them and does not want to play with them. .
Everyone will also remember that when Amir was not included in the tour of New Zealand, he took Misbah’s name and tweeted that you should ask Misbah regarding being left out of the team.
When Aamir returned to international cricket under the fast-track formula thanks to the kindness of Najam Sethi following his jail term for spot-fixing, there were high expectations.
But everyone saw that following five years away from international cricket, there was no such thing between them. Although his spell in the Champions Trophy final is still remembered by everyone.
Apart from this, he bowled well in a couple of Test matches in South Africa and West Indies, but overall he did not leave any special impression following his return.
Now that he has retired from international cricket and made himself available once more for the Pakistan team, some circles see his return in the context of the same tainted spot-fixing scandal.
As recently Rameez Raja repeated his old position in an interview that those cricketers who have been involved in spot-fixing or match-fixing should not have the right to represent the country once more.
Now the most important question is whether Amir will be able to perform like before following returning to the team? Because he has been playing franchise cricket in different countries since he was out of the stream of Pakistan cricket.
If we look at his recent performance in franchise cricket, he took 16 wickets in the last Caribbean Premier League. The number of wickets he took in the Pakistan Super League was 10 while in the ILT Twenty20 he was able to take 12 wickets.
One of the main reasons for Imad’s return is the continuous disappointing performance of left-arm sniper Muhammad Nawaz, and then Imad’s excellent performance in a few PSL matches also made this return possible.
Here it is also interesting whether it is Imad or Aamir, both of them sat on social media and TV and openly criticized the captain Babar Azam and said that the mindset of Babar’s captaincy is affecting the team.
Now these two will play under the captaincy of Babar, so the question of people is what will happen now? How will they face their captain now?
The return of Amir and Imad was not looked upon favorably by some quarters and the general opinion is that when your current players are doing well in domestic cricket, why not give them a chance, why look back. ?
In this regard, the examples of two talented left arm spinners Arafat Minhas and Mehran Mumtaz are being given.
Now let’s talk regarding Usman Khan, who has lived a very hard life and following working hard, he played cricket in the United Arab Emirates and Emirates Cricket also included him in its stream.
But now the same Emirates Cricket Board is very angry with him that he violated the rules and regulations of UAE cricket and associated himself with Pakistan cricket, due to which he was banned for five years in the Emirates. Is.
Usman has been doing exceptionally well as an overseas cricketer in the PSL for the past two seasons with Multan Sultans, which has opened doors for him in the Pakistan team.
Amir practices at a camp for the PSL in Lahore on December 28, 2015 (AFP)
What is the future for Usman, who burned his boats in the United Arab Emirates and joined Pakistan cricket?
Now let’s come Babur who has been made white ball captain once more in place of Shaheen Shah Afridi.
The first objection to making him captain came from Shahid Afridi, who is also the father-in-law of Shaheen Shah Afridi.
He tweeted that the decision to change the captain, which was taken by the experienced cricketers in the selection committee, was surprising to him. If this change was so necessary then Rizwan would have been the best choice but now that this decision has been made he will fully support Babar Azam.
It is not difficult to guess that Shahid Afridi is not happy with the decision to remove Shaheen from the captaincy.
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When Shaheen was made the T20 captain in place of Babar, some people were in favor of this decision, among which Aqib Javed, the head coach of Lahore Qalandars, was notable.
On the contrary, before this decision, this statement came out from his side that since Lahore Qalandars have won two consecutive PSL under Shaheen’s captaincy, Shaheen should be the captain of T20.
Shaheen’s captaincy was limited only to the T20 series played in the tour of New Zealand. The Pakistan team lost that series by four to one, following which there were speculations that Shaheen would be able to remain the captain or not.
Former chairman Zaka Ashraf was in the forefront in removing Babar from captaincy.
After the World Cup, not only Babar had to leave the captaincy, but the entire coaching staff was also changed and a former Test cricketer was made the head coach who had left the technical committee established by Zaka Ashraf.
And when he left the position of head coach, he continued to tell the stories of the dressing room and the internal affairs of the team on the TV show.
It is a challenge for Babar to become captain once more. Of course, he would have learned a lot from the captaincy of the World Cup held in India where he made mistakes because it is not just regarding the New Zealand, England and Ireland series but the real test is the T20 World Cup.
They also have to carry their fellow cricketers along and create an environment that is essential for any team to succeed.
Babar is the Pakistan captain with the most match wins in T20 Internationals. Those who find flaws in his captaincy say that Pakistan did not win any title under his captaincy.
But he does not mention that under his captaincy we have played a T20 World Cup final, a T20 World Cup semi-final and an Asia Cup final.
I will end my talk on why the issue of captaincy comes up before every World Cup. We have seen that apart from Asif Iqbal, Imran Khan and Wasim Akram, no cricketer has captained the World Cup more than once.
Before every World Cup, the captaincy issue has been in the headlines. We have seen the same situation before the T20 World Cup.
It would be nice to focus on the real game instead of this musical chair game of captaincy so that the team can play as one free from the captaincy debate and give us all the joy we have been waiting for so long.
This article is based on the personal opinion of the writer, Independent Urdu does not necessarily agree with it.
#team #announcement #musical #chairs #game #captaincy
2024-07-04 18:05:05