Misbah-ul-Haq: “We suggested keeping Abrar Ahmed in the squad keeping in mind our spin bowling is not in good form and didn’t do well in the Asia Cup”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq has revealed that he wanted mystery spinner Abrar Ahmed in the main squad for the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup.
Instead, Abrar was a reserve player for the tournament and thus didn’t get the opportunity to feature in any matches.
As the head of the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) Cricket Technical Committee, Misbah recommended that the 25-year-old from Karachi be selected in the main team.
This was due to the fact that the go-to spinners, which include Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz and Usama Mir, were not in good form.
However, his suggestion was ignored, much to his disappointment.
“Our [cricket committee] viewpoint was to include a mystery spinner especially when you are playing with different teams since it is not a series. Most of them would be playing for the first time,” Misbah was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
“We suggested keeping Abrar Ahmed in the squad keeping in mind our spin bowling is not in good form and didn’t do well in the Asia Cup.”
Pakistan started off by beating the Netherlands and Sri Lanka before stumbling against India, Australia, Afghanistan and South Africa.
Despite fighting back to take down Bangladesh and New Zealand, they were unable to qualify for the semi-finals.
The men in green ended their campaign in dismal fashion as England thumped them by 93 runs.
Abrar has been included in Pakistan’s squad for the upcoming three-match Test series against Australia, which will get underway on December 14 in Perth.
Pakistan Squad for Australia Test Series: Shan Masood (captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel and Shaheen Shah Afridi
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