Pakistan white-ball head coach Mike Hesson has affirmed that senior stars Babar Azam and Muhammad Rizwan will need to continue working on their strike rate and intent aspects to draw their way back into the T20I set-up. Babar and Rizwan, the two highest run-getters for Pakistan in the shortest format, were snubbed again as the T20I squad for the Asia Cup and the preceding tri-series was announced on Sunday.
“There’s no doubt Babar’s been asked to improve in some areas around taking on spin and in terms of his strike rate. Those are things he’s working really hard on,” Hesson said.
“But at the moment the players we have, have done exceptionally well. Sahibzada Farhan has played six games (against Bangladesh and West Indies) and won three Player of the Match awards.
“A player like Babar has an opportunity to play in the BBL and show he’s improving in those areas in T20s. He’s too good a player not to consider.”
Hesson added that Pakistan will need to back players who have performed in recent series in Rizwan and Babar’s absence.
“We were challenged with three different surfaces (in recent matches against Bangladesh and West Indies)” Hesson said.
“In Lahore, the surfaces were flat and the batting excelled. We went to Bangladesh where they were incredibly challenging and low-scoring games. Our top-order sets the game up. All the games we won the top order performed really well.
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“The third game in the West Indies, our openers put on 140 (138). We need that at a run rate that gets us ahead of the game. T20 is all about setting the game up and being ahead of the game all the time in case you get yourself out. From a batting point of view we’ve got a line-up that can continue to do that,” Hesson added.
Pakistan squad for tri-series and Asia Cup: Salman Ali Agha (c), Abrar Ahmed, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Hussain Talat, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Haris, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Waseem Jnr, Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Salman Mirza, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Sufyan Moqim
