Shahid Afridi, the temporary head selector of Pakistan’s men’s national team, has said that his objective is to provide Pakistan with enough choices to be able to play two sides if necessary. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) nominated Afridi as the temporary head of the men’s national selection committee last week.
Afridi’s comments came after Pakistan’s bowling attack was severely weakened during the previous month’s home Test series against England owing to the absence of frontline pacers Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah, who were both ruled out due to injury.
“I want to form two teams for Pakistan before my term expires in order to strengthen the bench,” Shahid Afridi told the media, according to the Hindustan Times.
Apart from that, the former Pakistan captain went on to say that there has been a lot of communication barrier between the selection committee and the players in the past, which he only found out about after chatting directly with players like Fakhar Zaman and Haris Sohail, among others.
“I feel like there was a communication breakdown in the past. I learned about the problems of the players by interacting with them individually. I chatted with Haris (Sohail) and Fakhar personally (Zaman). I think the players and the selecting committee should have open lines of contact.”
At the same time, Afridi endorsed captain Babar Azam’s audacious decision to declare the innings and set New Zealand a target of 138 runs in the fourth innings of the recently completed Karachi Test match, which ended in a draw.
“Babar Azam is the backbone of the Pakistan squad and we will support him. “His announcement judgement yesterday was sound,” he said.
Pakistan will now be aiming for a series triumph when they play New Zealand in the second and final Test match at Karachi’s National Bank Cricket Arena on Monday, January 2.
