'Abrar Ahmed was sidelined to save Shadab Khan'

Popular cricket respondent Nauman Niaz has raised a number of objections on Pakistan captain Babar Azam’s strategy for ICC World Cup 2023 including “sidelining Abrar Ahmed for Shadab Khan”.

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In an interview, the video of which is going viral on social media, Nauman Niaz said that he will bluntly analyse all the mistakes the Pakistan cricket team captain or management did while planning for World Cup 2023.

Nauman Niaz – speaking about the team selection and performances in the ongoing tournament – claimed that no one kept Babar Azam in check when he rose to fame on the back of his performances. He said the right-handed batter tried to become bigger than what he was.

The sports journalist said that Babar Azam did not allow any talented cricketer other than his friends to get into the team so not to disturb his comfort zone.

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Citing examples, he said Shadab Khan and Usama Mir were picked for the 50-over tournament when they were T20 specialists. He said the former was kept in the ODI team as he was friends with the captain.

He said the Shadab Khan and pacer Haris Rauf do not perform well in ODIs and Test cricket as he is not familiar with First Class.

Nauman Niaz went on to say that Abrar Ahmed was the main option as he excelled in five-day cricket. He said those in charge are “intellectually dishonest” given the fact they fear that the leg-spinner would become Shadab Khan’s replacement if he does well.

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Nauman Niaz said that ODI cricket is similar to Test cricket where you have to play and plan session to session so those who cannot perform in first-class cricket cannot play the longer formats of the game but still Shadab was preferred over Abrar Ahmed, who surprised everyone by his performance in Test cricket.

He said that pacer Hasan Ali is performing to the best of his ability while batters Abdullah Shafique and Saud Shakeel too are performing well despite not being a part of Pakistan’s World Cup plan.

He claimed Mickey Arthur was a disaster and the Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Zaka Ashraf wanted to replace him with someone else till former cricketers advised him not to do so as he would be blamed if the World Cup 2023 campaign went wrong.