He also won a third PSL title in four seasons as captain of Lahore Qalandars in May, bowling brilliantly, especially in the slog overs of the game.
Star pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi failed to make it to Pakistan’s T20I side for the upcoming three-match away series against Bangladesh. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) declared the 15-member squad for the series under the leadership of all-rounder Salman Ali Agha.
Apart from Shaheen, the likes of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan have also been excluded, raising doubts about their future in the national team’s T20I setup.
Pakistan white ball coach Mike Hesson spoke about Shaheen Shah Afridi’s exclusion from the T20I squad. He said that there are a few areas where the left-arm pacer needs some improvement.
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“Shaheen Shah Afridi is a world-class player. There’s no doubt that we’ve identified some areas that Shaheen needs to work on, as does every player at this camp. But there’s a good reason that he, and everybody else, is at this camp. They’re in the wider frame for Pakistan in white-ball cricket and that includes T20 cricket. Players go through good periods and periods where they’re a little bit down in their game”, Hesson said.
The last time Shaheen played a T20I game transpired in March this year when Pakistan toured New Zealand for a five-match series. The left-arm pacer was also a part of the Pakistan team that finished as the runners-up in the T20 World Cup in 2022. He also won a third PSL title in four seasons as captain of Lahore Qalandars in May, bowling brilliantly, especially in the slog overs of the game.
As of now, the 25-year-old pacer has played 79 T20I games, picking up 102 wickets at an economy of 7.90. His best figures in the shortest format of the game came when he scalped four wickets after conceding just 22 runs against Bangladesh in the T20I World Cup game in 2022.
“Shaheen will get his opportunity. But we also want to make sure that Shaheen has made some improvements to his game so that when he comes back into the T20 side, he does well”, he added.
Salman Ali Agha (c), Abrar Ahmed, Ahmed Daniyal, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Hassan Nawaz, Hussain Talat, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Haris (wk), Mohammad Nawaz, Sahibzada Farhan (wk), Saim Ayub, Salman Mirza, and Sufiyan Muqeem.
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