Pakistan announce limited-overs squad for home series against Zimbabwe

Pakistan have named their list of probable players for the upcoming limited-overs series at home against Zimbabwe. Abdullah Shafiq is a new face in this pool of players while the experienced cricketers like Shoaib Malik, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Mohammad Amir have been left out.

Misbah-ul-Haq, the head coach of Pakistan, explained the selections, “Abdullah Shafiq has been rewarded for his tremendous potential and performance. He has been identified as a future prospect and, therefore, drafted into the squad as part of his development. Seniors like Shoaib Malik and Sarfaraz Ahmed have not been picked for this series, but I want to categorically state that their careers are not over by any means as performance remains the only criterion for selection.”

Shafiq, The 20-year old right-hand batsman represented Central Punjab in the recently-concluded Pakistan’s domestic T20 tournament. He finished as the seventh on the top run-getters list with 358 runs in 10 matches. He scored a hundred on his T20 debut, becoming only the second player in history to make a century on both his first-class and T20 debuts.

Sarfaraz Ahmed has been dropped in favour of Rohail Nazir, who has been named as Mohammad Rizwan’s back-up wicketkeeper. Meanwhile, Mohammad Hafeez and Wahab Riaz are two senior players who have been retained for their useful experience in the batting and bowling respectively, which will benefit the youngsters as per Misbah.

The squad will assemble in Lahore on 21st October for Covid-19 testing and shall be in isolation. After the testing procedures, the final squad will be named. Pakistan will be playing three ODIs against Zimbabwe starting on 30th October before travelling to Lahore for three T20Is.

Probables list:

Abdullah Shafiq, Abid Ali, Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Sohail, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imam-ul-Haq, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Rizwan, Rohail Nazir, Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Usman Qadir, Zafar Gohar, Faheem Ashraf, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Hasnain, Musa Khan, Shaheen Shah, Wahab Riaz