Recently we saw that Pakistan team consisting of new players played three T20 cricket matches against Afghanistan in which they faced defeat. Anyway, lass is loss so it will not be wrong to say that Afghan team played well, but the same time we can’t ignore the good performance of our new guys too.
If we talk about bowling, Ehsanullah troubled the Afghan batsmen by bowling fast on the dead wickets of Sharjah, Zaman Khan also bowled well. Young batsman Saeem Ayub also batted well and Imad Wasim also looked in good form.
Now the point is that if you expect your new team to perform on dead wickets of Sharjah the way they performed in PSL’s batting wickets, it will not be wise. Now New Zealand is heading to Pakistan and before April 14, three T20I matches will be played in Lahore and the remaining two T20I matches will be played at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, while after that five ODIs are also included in the schedule.
In these five T20 matches, the same Pakistani team should be played, which you sent against Afghanistan, because in this new and young team, all PSL’s farmers are there and you will know that PSL was played in the same grounds of Pakistan. So, we can expect good performance from the young plyers on home ground, that is why they should be given another chance so that they could prove their performance. It will not be reasonable to drop them from the team on the basis of their poor performance in Sharjah.
Azam Khan, who was heavily criticized by fans due to his heavy weight, but you can’t judge someone by one’s performance in one or two matches. My opinion is that Azam Khan should be given full chance in five T20 matches against New Zealand and if he did not perform well then you can raise question over his performance. The five T20 matches against New Zealand will prove if the young players are able to play international matches or not. On the other hand, our senior players including Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, Fakhar Zaman, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and others should focus only on ODI matches.
Because ICC’s ODI World Cup is going to start this year from 5th October 2023, for which Pakistan should start preparing from now and senior players should focus only on ODI matches, because all over the world the teams prepare for the World Cup in such a way that their senior ODI players are restricted to ODI and Test cricket, as T20 cricket is much faster and has a higher risk of injury.
As for as T20 is concerned , your new team is also capable to beat New Zealand at home ground and you should give more chances to your new boys, so that they get more experience.
Unless you give your young players a chance to come forward, you will lack good players, which we saw in last year’s T20 World Cup when Shaheen Shah Afridi got injured in the final and Pakistan lost T20 World Cup. Because Shaheen Shah Afridi’s fitness was not that special in that World Cup and Shaheen Shah Afridi was playing in the final match as if he was forced to play. If there was a good fast bowler like Ehsanullah in place of Shaheen Shah Afridi, maybe we would have had the 2022 T20 World Cup as well.
