Farveez Maharoof: “if he’s playing, he should be in the top four. He should be batting in the top four. If not, I think it’s just a waste of time”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Farveez Maharoof, the former Sri Lanka pace bowler, has urged Pakistan to put attacking batsman Mohammad Haris in the top four of their batting line-up.
He feels the 22-year-old from Peshawar is too talented to be left out of the squad as he is capable of scoring quick runs.
While he conceded that Pakistan would need to find a way to accommodate him, Maharoof insisted that Haris should be in the team no matter what.
“I also feel Mohammad Haris deserves a look-in because I saw him batting during the Emerging Asia Cup, I was doing commentary, and he led the team really well, he batted really well, he’s a fantastic player,” he said in a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“In the LPL (Lanka Premier League) for B-Love [Kandy], he was opening the batting and scoring a lot of runs, so I would like to get him somehow on the board. I don’t know which position he is going to be.
“For me, if he’s playing, he should be in the top four. He should be batting in the top four. If not, I think it’s just a waste of time.”
Haris wasn’t picked for Pakistan’s two-Test series against Sri Lanka and neither did he play in the three-match ODI series against Afghanistan.
As for the Asia Cup, he only featured in Pakistan’s must-win game against Sri Lanka and scored three runs.
Pakistan started the tournament on a high as they crushed Nepal by 238 runs, shared one point apiece with India as their match was washed out, and cruised past Bangladesh by seven wickets.
However, their unbeaten streak was subsequently ended by India, who thrashed them by 228 runs.
The men in green still had a chance to reach the Asia Cup final, but couldn’t do it as they lost to Sri Lanka by two wickets via the Duckworth–Lewis–Stern method (DLS) method.
Haris has been picked in Pakistan’s team for the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup in India, which begins on October 5.
Pakistan’s first game will be against the Netherlands on October 6 in Hyderabad.
Pakistan Squad for 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup:Â Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique, Babar Azam (capt), Mohammad Rizwan, Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Salman Ali Agha, Shadab Khan, Usama Mir, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Hasan Ali