Former Pakistan skipper Mohammad Hafeez was not amused with Pakistan’s tactic of promoting Shadab Khan up the order versus New Zealand in the tri-series fixture on Saturday.
The Men in Green were proactive in their latest fixture when they floated Shadab up the order. The move was successful as Pakistan went on to win the match by six wickets and 10 balls to spare.
The player was promoted to number four in the sixth over of the innings when Pakistan were struggling at 37 for 2, chasing 148. Shadab smashed 34 runs in just 22 balls, including two fours and as many sixes. He added 61 runs for the third wicket with Babar Azam in just seven overs and left the team with 50 required off 46 balls when he was dismissed.
Captain Babar then saw off the chase safely with an unbeaten 79-run knock. While the move to promote Shadab was appreciated by fans and other experts, Hafeez had a different opinion.
He took to Twitter to criticise the team management, saying the success they achieve by promoting the all-rounders Shadab and Mohammad Nawaz will be short-term but do more damage to their middle-order batters.
Pakistan’s batting woes have been long-standing, and it has been exposed time and again over the last couple of years. Their opening duo has been criticised several times for batting conservatively most of the overs and leaving the middle order no option but to slog in the end overs. Which then means no proper time for the middle-order batters to develop into their roles.
Promoting the spin-hitters in Shadab and Nawaz is arguably the best solution they have this close to the World Cup, irrespective of what Hafeez thinks, and they are likely to implement it more in the near future.
