As Babar Azam-led side prepares to begin their T20 World Cup journey against the United States on June 6, former cricketer Rashid Latif has shared his thoughts on his playing XI that Green Shirts should go within the opening match.
Pakistan will be playing their first match of the mega tournament against one of the T20 World Cup’s co-hosts for whom this would be the second game.
Taking to social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Latif included two frontline spinners in the Men in Green’s lineup namely Abrar Ahmed and Shadab Khan.
Leaving out pacer Naseem Shah, the ex-cricketer said that if it was up to him he would either pick Salman Ali Agha or Mohammad Haris if they were part of the squad.
Other nine players that Latif named were Mohammad Rizwan, Babar Azam, Usman Khan, Fakhar Zaman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Amir and Haris Rauf.
The former player’s views on the team’s playing XI comes days after he said that a senior player such as Rizwan should be Pakistan’s wicketkeeper as he has been leading the game from behind the wickets and removing him all of a sudden would not serve the team well.
“The team has two wicketkeepers, Usman Khan and Rizwan. I suggest that wicketkeeping should be done by a senior player,” he said while speaking on a local sports programme.
“Rizwan was running the game from behind for the last four years [but] now you have removed that guard,” he added.
He then talked about the reason why Pakistan have been suffering recently saying that their combination isn’t right and the players should be ready to play according to the match situation.
“They are not getting their combination right, which is their biggest problem. Not only shuffle, but players need to be prepared to play at floating roles now in T20 cricket as per the match situation,” Latif added.
Pakistan’s T20 World Cup 2024 squad
Babar Azam (c), Saim Ayub, Mohammad Rizwan, Azam Khan, Shadab Khan, Fakhar Zaman, Usman Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Abrar Ahmed, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Amir, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf.