Mohammad Yousuf: “It’s hard to take a gamble now when the World Cup is so close”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Pakistan batting coach Mohammad Yousuf said the team can’t afford to gamble now by switching captain Babar Azam and wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan around.
This comes after people have said that they shouldn’t open the batting in T20 Internationals, even though they have consistently scored runs.
The reason behind the discontent is that Azam and Rizwan’s strike-rate is quite low, which people feel puts a lot of pressure on the middle order to carry the men in green to a solid score.
Thus, the idea of replacing either Azam or Rizwan at the top of the order with a quick-scoring batsman has been put forth time and time again.
However, Yousuf pointed out that with the 2022 T20 World Cup having gotten underway, there is no way any major changes will be made to the batting line-up.
“It’s hard to take a gamble now when the World Cup is so close,” he was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
Pakistan’s opening match in the 2022 T20 World Cup will be against India on October 23 in Melbourne.
Pakistan’s 2022 T20 World Cup squad: Babar Azam (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Shan Masood
Reserves: Mohammad Haris, Shahnawaz Dahani and Usman Qadir