Misbah-ul-Haq: “We aren’t discarding him for good, when we feel we need him in future, we can select him”
Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo
Pakistan head coach and chief selector Misbah-ul-Haq has insisted that batsman Iftikhar Ahmed is still part of his plans despite being dropped for the upcoming Test series against Sri Lanka.
Iftikhar, who was replaced by in-form batsman Fawad Alam, only scored 44 runs in the two-Test series against Australia at an average of 11.
Misbah admitted that dropping Iftikhar was a “difficult decision”, especially as he did well in the Twenty20 series against Australia.
“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,” Misbah was quoted as saying by PakPassion.
Pakistan’s upcoming Test series against Sri Lanka will be historic as it will be their first Test series on home soil in over 10 years.
The two Tests will be held in Rawalpindi from December 11 to 15 and Karachi from December 19 to 23.
Despite not being part of Pakistan’s Test squad, Iftikhar was retained by the Karachi Kings for next year’s Pakistan Super League (PSL).
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Misbah is a fool. He is repeating the same history he had to suffer when inzi did not keep him in his team for years. He did the same to Fawad Alam and other domestic performers. Now shoaib malik’s PR skills keep him in the team despite it being long past his expiry date. Hafeez too I suspect is good only on slow pitches now. Still for WC in India his case can be argued. yet we are not looking to play horses for courses. In the firat test against england we did not play sohail khan despite two rookies and one fast bowler who is only good in first spell. Shadab was a good choice yet they ditched him after he pwrformed in first test. In third test weak bowling came unstuxk again. After 120 for 4 they were 580 for 7 odd. Like first test thwre was no killing blow after expoaing middle order. Nobody knew how to swing old ball which everyone knows gets soft in england.