KARACHI: Following the ninth season of the nation’s T20 spectacular, which saw Islamabad United win their third HBL Pakistan Super League title in the early hours of Tuesday, attention quickly turned to the national team and the approaching T20 World Cup.
The Pakistan Cricket Board will need to consider a lot of factors and ask a lot of questions in order to choose a strong team for the event that will take place in the United States and the West Indies starting in June.
After Pakistan’s dismal elimination from the 50-over World Cup in India last year, the team’s dressing room was essentially destroyed.
Even worse, they lost a 4-1 T20 series to New Zealand with Shan Masood and Shaheen Shah Afridi as their new captains, respectively, and were humiliated 3-0 in Test matches by Australia thereafter.
Shaheen is reportedly considering resigning from his position as Pakistan T20 captain. And that might very well mean that the PCB, led by recently appointed Chairman Mohsin Naqvi, has to start from scratch in order to assemble a revamped Pakistani team for the T20 World Cup.
Prior to Mohsin’s arrival, however, the PCB’s temporary management committee chairman Zaka Ashraf resigned, necessitating the appointment of a selection committee by the board.
During the PSL final, Mohsin informed reporters in a news conference that “the selection committee will be appointing captain; I will not be picking the captain.” “I think the selection committee should have sufficient authority to make these crucial judgments, but I might be changing some things in that committee.
The committee, together with the captain and coach, will then take the credit and the responsibility. They will be making decisions because they have an obligation to deliver results.
Following the World Cup in India, Zaka fired Pakistan’s coaching staff and replaced it with a group headed by former captain Muhammad Hafeez, who was also fired by Mohsin last month.
As a result, the PCB is currently searching for a coach for the national team and has not yet been successful in negotiating with a potential coach, former Australian all-round player Shane Watson. Mohsin stated the PCB was trying to hire a coach before to the Pakistan team’s training camp at the nation’s military academy in Kakul later this month.
“Our goal is to appoint the coaching staff as soon as possible,” Mohsin stated. Since the players are also expected to depart for Kakul shortly, a great deal of backend work is being done to find and finalize the staff. I won’t get into specifics.
“We’ll do our utmost to select the top candidates. Since these are merely early discussions, I will not be taking names. As soon as it is locked, we will announce the coaching staff,” the PCB president continued.
A handful of players have surfaced as possibilities for the plane that Pakistan will take to Dallas to begin their T20 World Cup journey against co-hosts United States, aside from the few Pakistan constants.
Retired all-rounder Imad Wasim tops the list; he took five wickets in the final and provided United three straight match-winning efforts with the bat and the ball.
There is a lot of speculation about Imad returning from retirement, and even Shadab Khan, the captain of Islamabad and the best all-round player in Pakistan, has publicly expressed his desire for the all-rounder to return before the World Cup.
“Maddy Bhai has the right to determine whether or not to come out of retirement,” Shadab stated at the news conference following the match. However, I’m sure he might think about doing so if someone talks to him about it.
“I think Pakistan should have the best players and those who are in form on the team because it’s World Cup season.”
Although Imad, 35, has not publicly stated that he intends to return to the international game, he has expressed his belief that he still has some cricket left in him.
After the final, Imad remarked, “I’m glad it went so well for me. I wasn’t feeling like it would be my best event tournament, but I wanted to make an impact.” “I’m trying to give as much as I can, and I think that playing cricket makes me happy. I’m fit. I still have four or five years remaining to play cricket.
Another name that can strengthen Pakistan’s potential all-around arsenal in the T20 spectacular is Saim Ayub. The opener for Peshawar Zalmi has shown himself to be a weapon with the ball with to his ability to mystery-spin it.
The team’s captain, Babar Azam, who was once Pakistan’s all-format captain and is now the country’s batting anchor, frequently employed Saim to attack with the new ball during the powerplay, and the right-armer typically paid off.
Babar was the PSL’s top run scorer this season with almost 500 runs, having excelled as an opener. After being demoted to the one-down spot for Pakistan in the New Zealand series, he made an impressive appearance at the top of the order.
The right-hander said last week that he played at one-down “for Pakistan,” not because he wanted to, and he has also publicly stated his own desire to play as an opener solely.
Azam Khan, the wicket-keeper for Islamabad United, will be in the running again after winning the wicket-keeper of the tournament award. He wants to further develop as a formidable batsman at number six and challenge Mohammad Rizwan behind the wickets.
Even though he was the third-highest scorer for the losing Multan Sultans, skipper Rizwan wasn’t happy with his play and stated he was willing to drop down the order because Saim and Babar were fighting for the opening spot on the national squad.
At the presenting ceremony, he declared, “I’m not quite satisfied with my batting, but I’m always available to bat any position for Pakistan.”
Pakistan will begin its preparation for the T20 World Cup on April 18 when they take on New Zealand in five T20I matches in Rawalpindi and Lahore, this time at home.
