The national senior men’s selection committee has made a decisive move, opting to exclude former captains Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, and pace bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi from the upcoming T20 squads for tours against Bangladesh and West Indies. This significant decision, reportedly made in consultation with white-ball head coach Mike Hesson and skipper Salman Agha, appears to stem from the trio’s recent performances in white-ball tours and the ICC Champions Trophy.
Mohammad Rizwan captained Pakistan in a 2-0 T20 series defeat in South Africa, a tour in which Babar Azam also participated. Following this series, both players were subsequently omitted from the squad for the New Zealand tour and the home series against Bangladesh, signaling a potential shift in the team’s direction.
A senior official from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) shed light on the committee’s stance, stating to a sports portal that “Pakistan’s management and selection committee want to move on from Babar and Rizwan despite Hesson and Salman both saying that the door was not shut on the two former openers, whose strike rate and batting form in T20Is were part of Pakistan’s problems in recent defeats.” This statement underscores the underlying concerns regarding the batting form and strike rates of the former openers in the shortest format of the game.
The newly constituted selection committee, which now includes former skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed and former pacer Sikander Bakht as observers, has seemingly ensured that the squads for the three-match T20I series in Bangladesh and the subsequent five T20Is against the West Indies in Florida will not feature these “problematic players,” as reported by another source. Pakistan is set to face Bangladesh on July 20, 22, and 24, before heading to Florida for the West Indies series.
