Mohammad Hafeez: “When I was overseeing domestic cricket as team director, players like Kamran Ghulam were discouraged”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Pakistan team director Mohammad Hafeez believes the national team lost a huge batting talent in Kamran Ghulam.
Hafeez noted that Ghulam was “discouraged” as his efforts in domestic cricket were going unnoticed and he kept being ignored for selection.
The 28-year-old from Upper Dir averages 49.12 in first-class cricket, 42.97 in List A cricket and 27.96 in T20s.
Most recently, he played for Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited in the President’s Cup Grade-I (1-Day) tournament and finished as the second-highest run-scorer with 360 runs in six matches, which included two centuries and a fifty, at an average of 72.
Ghulam has scored big runs in domestic cricket for quite some time, but Hafeez noted that constantly being overlooked led him to develop the mindset that “he would never get an international cap based on his performances”.
“When I was overseeing domestic cricket as team director, players like Kamran Ghulam were discouraged. Ghulam, despite his talent, chose to leave Pakistan to play league cricket because he felt that scoring hundreds in domestic cricket wouldn’t be rewarding in the long run and he would never get an international cap based on his performances,” he was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
The Pakistan team recently featured in the 2024 T20 World Cup and lost to the United States of America and India before rebounding to defeat Canada and Ireland.
Despite picking up back-to-back victories, the men in green were eliminated in the group stage of the competition.
Pakistan Squad for 2024 T20 World Cup: Babar Azam (capt), Saim Ayub, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Fakhar Zaman, Azam Khan (wk), Usman Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Amir, Abbas Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Abrar Ahmed
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