Mickey Arthur: “We know he will win us games, it’s high risk at times”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Pakistan team director Mickey Arthur admitted that powerful batsman Fakhar Zaman is “high risk at times”, but he has the ability to single-handedly win games.
The 33-year-old has been a regular member of the limited overs squads for some time now and has developed a reputation for being one of the best attacking top order batsmen in the world.
Arthur noted that in order to ensure players like Zaman trust the process and “play for the team” rather than themselves, they need to be selected consistently so that they aren’t concerned about losing their spot after one or two bad performances.
“I can then say to a player, take Fakhar for an example, that you’re going to play the next ten ODIs. We know he will win us games, it’s high risk at times, but at least this way the players start trusting the structure and believing in the selection process, and play for the team,” he told Wisden.
Zaman recently featured in Pakistan’s five-match T20I series against New Zealand and accumulated 126 runs, which included a top score of 50, at an average of 25.20 and a strike-rate of 165.78.
He will now play for the Lahore Qalandars in the 2024 Pakistan Super League (PSL), which gets underway on February 17.
Lahore Qalandars Squad for PSL 9: Shaheen Shah Afridi (captain), Fakhar Zaman, Rassie van der Dussen, Haris Rauf, David Wiese, Sahibzada Farhan, Sikandar Raza, Abdullah Shafique, Zaman Khan, Mirza Tahir Baig, Mohammad Imran, Ahsan Hafeez, Dan Lawrence, Jahandad Khan, Syed Faridoun, Shai Hope, Kamran Ghulam, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Tayyab Abbas
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