Shahid Afridi: “In my opinion, Usman Salahuddin has played for Pakistan previously and had some great performances. Where is he?”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Shahid Afridi, the former interim chief selector, has expressed his shock at the fact that middle order batsman Usman Salahuddin is nowhere to be seen despite having “had some great performances.”
Salahuddin has played one Test and two ODIs for Pakistan, but hasn’t been given any opportunities since his Test debut against England in June 2018.
The 32-year-old from Lahore has had numerous strong campaigns in domestic cricket and seemingly has been on the selectors’ radar for a while. However, it never ends up materialising into a call-up and any match time at the international level.
Afridi finds this incredibly frustrating since Pakistan have a knack of investing in certain players before abandoning them for new cricketers or younger talents.
“In my opinion, Usman Salahuddin has played for Pakistan previously and had some great performances. Where is he? I mean, you give chances to completely new players, you don’t give chances to the players you have invested in; they don’t seem to be noticed,” he was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
The Pakistan team have enjoyed great results lately as they whitewashed Sri Lanka 2-0 in a Test series before Afghanistan suffered the same fate in an ODI series as they lost 3-0.
The men in green recently played in the Asia Cup, where they beat Nepal by 238 runs, shared one point apiece with India after their match was ruined by rain, and defeated Bangladesh by seven wickets.
However, they were handed their first loss by India when the men in blue crushed them by 228 runs in the Super Four stage.
Pakistan had the chance to make it to the Asia Cup final, but failed to do so as they lost to Sri Lanka by two wickets via the Duckworth–Lewis–Stern method (DLS) method.
Pakistan Squad for 2023 Asia Cup: Babar Azam (capt), Shadab Khan, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Fakhar Zaman, Abdullah Shafique, Imam-ul-Haq, Saud Shakeel, Salman Ali Agha, Iftikhar Ahmed, Mohammad Nawaz, Usama Mir, Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Haris (wk), Faheem Ashraf, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Shahnawaz Dahani, Zaman Khan.
Travelling reserve: Tayyab Tahir