With the experienced duo of Babar Azam and Shaheen Afridi not finding a place in Pakistan’s squad for the upcoming T20I series against Bangladesh, head coach Mike Hesson has laid out a pathway for their return.
While Babar and Shaheen weren’t picked for Hesson’s first assignment as head coach—which ended in Salman Ali Agha leading Pakistan to a 3-0 sweep in a T20I series at home against Bangladesh—the Kiwi revealed that they were still in the team management’s plans for next year’s T20 World Cup.
Hesson also revealed that both players were currently training in Karachi with members of the squad which will travel to Bangladesh for a T20I series later this month. The coach also quashed rumours that the only way Babar could make it back to the T20I team was if he donned the gloves as Pakistan’s first-choice wicketkeeper.
“Firstly, Babar Azam is not seen as a wicket-keeping option, no. Not sure where that came from, but I have heard that speculation. Babar is competing for one of the opening positions at the moment. But obviously we have Fakhar [Zaman] and Saim [Ayub] in those two roles at the moment, so he’s competing for that,” Hesson explained.
Babar’s strike rate of 129.81 in T20I cricket has often come under the scanner, and Hesson admitted that power-hitting was one aspect the former skipper needed to work on.
“No doubt strike rate is important in T20 cricket but you have to combine it with a volume of runs. There’s a good reason why our ranking in T20 cricket is as low as it is, because our strike rates from a batting point of view are not high enough. We certainly made some shifts in that last series to play a more expansive game of cricket and probably catch up with the rest of the world, as that is the way the modern game is.
“Babar is one of many who have the ability to make those improvements. And I’m here to work with them and help them. In the last month or so, he’s made some really good changes. It’s not just a matter of going from 125 to 150, it’s a matter of increasing what you can offer because we’re no doubt often 30-40 runs short with the bat. So, we need to find a way of getting that.”
Hesson said he had identified the areas Shaheen needed to work on but didn’t delve into the specifics.
“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,” Hesson added.
