The acting captain of Pakistan, Shadab Khan, believes that the team’s loss against Afghanistan would have a lot of beneficial ramifications and that when Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan rejoin the national team, their tireless efforts will be even more recognised.
For the current three-game series against Afghanistan in Sharjah, Babar and Rizwan were given a break. In their place, a number of players with less expertise and credentials were given the chance to shine.
Afghanistan defeated Pakistan by seven wickets on Sunday to win their first series victory over their Asian opponent, making up for the unfavourable outcomes of the first two games of the series.
In the first two games against Afghanistan, Babar and Rizwan’s normal consistency early in Pakistan’s innings was missing, and Shadab believes that too many people regard their performances as a given.
“People still criticise Babar and Rizwan whether or not they perform. The sword of strike rate is always hanging over them. Since they were performing well in the PSL (Pakistan Super League), we as a nation wanted young players to play international cricket because we believed they would play with a higher strike rate, according to Shadab.
But eventually, the country will see the value of experience and that, given their results, our seniors didn’t receive the respect they deserved. They will consequently gain a great deal of respect from the public and the media following this series.
In the first four overs of the match on Sunday, Pakistan lost three wickets, and they never recovered as they managed a meagre score of 130/6 from their 20 overs.
Shadab wonders what may have happened if his team had been able to record a marginally higher score. Afghanistan chased down the win target with one delivery left.
“70% of games are lost when you lose three wickets during the powerplay…The younger guys were apprehensive, Shadab said.
We must encourage them even though they are making their debut for Pakistan.
The purpose of this series was to find emerging talent that we could encourage in the future.