Basit Ali: “Today, I am giving you the advice to stop playing at No. 3. You should open the batting in all three formats. If you come at No. 3, you will harm yourself and Pakistan”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Pakistan cricketer Basit Ali has urged Test captain Shan Masood to stop batting at number three and instead open in all three formats.
He noted that if Masood keeps coming in at one down, “you will harm yourself and Pakistan”.
It remains to be seen if the 34-year-old heeds Basit’s advice in Tests, but the Kuwait-born batsman hasn’t represented Pakistan in T20Is and ODIs since 2022 and 2023 respectively.
“Shan Masood sahab, stop playing at No. 3. When I saw you for the first time, I gave you the advice that the bat’s length should be long. Today, I am giving you the advice to stop playing at No. 3. You should open the batting in all three formats. If you come at No. 3, you will harm yourself and Pakistan,” Basit said on his YouTube channel as quoted by Cricket Pakistan.
Masood was not involved in the 2024 T20 World Cup, where the men in green failed to make it out of the group stage.
However, he is now leading Pakistan in a two-match Test series against Bangladesh.
Pakistan lost the first Test by 10 wickets and will look to bounce back in the second Test, which gets underway on August 30 in Rawalpindi.
Pakistan Squad for Bangladesh Test Series: Shan Masood (captain), Saud Shakeel (vice-captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Kamran Ghulam, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Ali, Muhammad Hurraira, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wicketkeeper), Shaheen Shah Afridi
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