Mohammad Hafeez: “I felt Saim Ayub as an opener was a solution for us. Why current team management has retained Saim as an opener if I was wrong?”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Pakistan team director Mohammad Hafeez said he was right about Saim Ayub being an ideal opener for the national team.
Ayub has been utilised as an opening batsman in both Tests and T20Is and has shown flashes of brilliance so far.
While the 21-year-old has yet to score a half-century at the international level, Hafeez noted that if the Karachi native wasn’t cut out to be an opener, the team management wouldn’t have retained him.
“I felt Saim Ayub as an opener was a solution for us. Why current team management has retained Saim as an opener if I was wrong?” he told Geo News as quoted by NDTV.
Ayub recently featured in Pakistan’s five-match T20I series against New Zealand and mustered 57 runs in five games at an average of 14.25 and a strike-rate of 129.54.
He was then in action in the three-match T20I series against Ireland and amassed 65 runs at an average of 21.66 and a strike-rate of 151.16.
Next up for Pakistan will be four T20Is against England from May 22 to May 30.
After this, the men in green will feature in the T20 World Cup, which will take place in the West Indies and United States of America from June 1 to 29.
Pakistan’s first T20 World Cup game will be against the United States of America in Dallas on June 6.
Pakistan Squad for Ireland and England T20I Series: Babar Azam (capt), Abrar Ahmed, Azam Khan, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Irfan Khan, Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Usman Khan
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