Pakistan’s out-of-favour batter Ahmed Shehzad used X (previously Twitter) to once again criticize the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the country’s team management, after the latter included Shaheen Shah Afridi, the star pacer left out from Pakistan’s 12-man squad for the second Test match against Bangladesh, which starts at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on August 30.
Shehzad has said that Shaheen is not the only player earning bad results in international cricket for Pakistan. He conceded that in recent months, the pacer has not been performing well lately, but that taking him out of the setup alone would do nothing to improve matters; rather it would be better to drop all underperforming players from the team entirely
Addressing Shaheen Afridi as the only reason for the defeat is not fairly blaming the poor performance of Pakistan cricket team. Pak cricket team has faced defeat against Zimbabwe, Ireland and USA too but no one ever tried to put all the blame on Shaheen Afridi alone. In a video uploaded on his X account, Shehzad said “You lost to Zimbabwe; you lost to Ireland; you lost to USA; you lost to India; now you lost against Bangladesh”. These defeats do not merit that Shaheen Afridi should be singled out for punishment. He further stated that ‘How can it be fair if all that is blamed on Shaheen Afridi?’
“He may be one of the performers whose performance has not been very good lately and may have some attitude issues thus were dropped from the team but what about other players?” This argument may seem flawed if looked at superficially but it does reflect reality.
Right-handed batsman questioned the contribution made by openers Abdullah Shafique, Saim Ayub and star batter Babar Azam (former captain) to the team in last 10+ Tests.
“What can you say about Abdullah Shafique’s record from his last 8 Test matches? What can you say about Saim Ayub’s record after playing 25 matches? What can you say about Babar Azam’s record from his last 14 Test matches? So simply excluding them wouldn’t do any sort of surgery; it wouldn’t put Pakistan team on the right track either. There are certain choices that have to be taken. And these persons including them whose performances are not up to scratch will also have to be answered,” he said so.
The member of the Pakistani team at T20 World Cup winning squad in 2009 stated that Pakistan is above everything else and if PCB wants to do something for betterment of Pakistani cricket then it should remove all non-performing players. “Because nothing is greater than cricket and country. Country comes first.
“It doesn’t matter how many people run PR; it doesn’t matter how many hide behind personal milestones; it doesn’t matter how many people buy boards or invest money in different ways. We know everything. And those who are handling the helm of affairs in PCB, they too are aware of all this So, now the time has come when not just one person, if you really want to go into right direction, then you will have to bring those who have been like these at once. This will not work!”
The Pakistani cricket team will play again trying to make amends after losing last match with Shan Masood leading side which faces Bangladesh second test match in Rawalpindi.
