Former captain questions Babar, Rizwan’s exclusion after Bangladesh T20I loss

Former Pakistan women’s team captain Sana Mir has raised questions over the exclusion of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan from the T20I side.

Discussing Pakistan’s series loss to Bangladesh at a private channel, Mir maintained that rash and inconsistent decisions about team selection have hurt the national side.

“Your main team comes under pressure when you corner players through forced selections,” she said.

Recalling the time when Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan were excluded from the T20I side, Sana Mir said that their exclusion was attributed to their inability to adapt to modern cricket and the team’s needs.

“When we suggested that maybe one of them should come in between, that didn’t happen. And then suddenly, both were rested or dropped,” she said.

The former Pakistan captain was of the view that their abrupt exclusion from the team put the current team under additional pressure.

“Now, the pressure of that decision has shifted onto this team. There’s a need to justify somehow that team selection by proving that they [Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan] are not part of the team because they did not play modern-day cricket, and that these players do. So the entire burden has now fallen on this current team, whether they accept it or not,” Sana Mir said.

“I have said this before that you cannot disregard such big players. You need to make your selection policy a little more consistent,” she added.

It is to be noted here that Bangladesh defeated Pakistan in the second T20I by eight runs a day earlier in Dhaka to win a first-ever series in the format against Pakistan.