Brendon McCullum: “When it comes to how Saud Shakeel played in this innings, I honestly thought it was a brilliant innings. It was almost death by a thousand cuts”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
England head coach Brendon McCullum hailed Pakistan middle order batsman Saud Shakeel for his performance in the third Test in Rawalpindi, saying it was like “death by a thousand cuts”.
Shakeel played an instrumental role in helping Pakistan win the match as he struck a magnificent 134 in the first innings, which came off 223 balls and included five boundaries.
Overall, the 29-year-old from Karachi finished the series with 280 runs at an average of 56.
“When it comes to how Saud Shakeel played in this innings, I honestly thought it was a brilliant innings. It was almost death by a thousand cuts. He was able to deflect the ball beautifully to both sides of the wicket. He was able to rotate the strike and he got help from Sajid and Noman,” McCullum was quoted as saying by respected journalist Saj Sadiq on X, formerly known as Twitter.
After the England series, Shakeel wasn’t involved in Pakistan’s tour of Australia, which consisted of three ODIs and three T20Is.
The men in green won the ODIs 2-1, while were whitewashed 3-0 in the T20Is.
Instead of playing against Australia, Shakeel has been representing Karachi Region Whites in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, where he has accumulated 151 runs in two matches, which includes a top score of 120, at an average of 37.75.
Pakistan’s next assignment will be a limited overs tour of Zimbabwe, where they will play three ODIs and three T20Is from November 24 to December 5.
Pakistan Squad for Australia ODI Series: Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Arafat Minhas, Babar Azam, Faisal Akram, Haris Rauf, Haseebullah Khan (wicketkeeper), Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Rizwan (captain and wicketkeeper), Irfan Khan, Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Shaheen Shah Afridi
Pakistan Squad for Australia T20I Series: Arafat Minhas, Babar Azam, Haris Rauf, Haseebullah Khan, Jahandad Khan, Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Rizwan (captain and wicketkeeper), Irfan Khan, Naseem Shah, Omair Bin Yousuf, Sahibzada Farhan, Salman Ali Agha, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Sufiyan Muqeem, Usman Khan
Pakistan Squad for Zimbabwe ODI Series: Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Ahmed Daniyal, Faisal Akram, Haris Rauf, Haseebullah Khan (wicketkeeper), Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Rizwan (captain and wicketkeeper), Irfan Khan, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Shahnawaz Dahani, Tayyab Tahir
Pakistan Squad for Zimbabwe T20I Series: Ahmed Daniyal, Arafat Minhas, Haris Rauf, Haseebullah Khan (wicketkeeper), Jahandad Khan, Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain, Irfan Khan, Omair bin Yousuf, Qasim Akram, Sahibzada Farhan, Salman Ali Agha, Sufiyan Muqeem, Tayyab Tahir, Usman Khan
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