Test captain Misbah-ul-Haq dropped Iftikhar Ahmed from the Test team.
Misbah-ul-Haq had plans of leading a bunch of young Pakistani players in their tour of Australia. However, this wasn’t the case when they were beaten 3-0 in both Tests and T20Is by the Aussies. The former Pakistan captain took over as the head coach and chief selector of the National Team following the release of Mickey Arthur and company.
Before the loss to Australia, Pakistan had been doing well when they defeated Sri Lanka in an ODI series at home but were defeated 3-0. The Lankans were led by Dasun Shanaka, but Misbah said that Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal were more of a problem. Misbah also believed in another player, Iftikhar Ahmed, who showed plenty of potential. However, this would see the day of light as Ahmed was dropped from the team that will play in the Sri Lanka Test series at home.
Despite this, Misbah-ul-Haq insists that Ahmed still has a role to play. He later admitted that deciding to drop Ahmed was a ‘difficult decision’ especially since he played well during the T20 series against Australia. Ahmed was then replaced by Fawad Alam who will play his first Test match in nearly a decade. ‘Iftikhar has been performing well, in white-ball cricket he has done well and he made runs in Australia too. It’s a difficult decision but you can only keep a limited squad. We aren’t discarding him for good, when we feel we need him in future, we can select him’, said Misbah-ul-Haq in an interview.
Tests are the longest format of a cricket game, with a single match lasting from three to five days. To find out more about this and other cricket formats, visit Betwala’s page.
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