A blueprint on how Pakistan can fix the T20I team

[deep82]

Pakistan should start by revamping the T20 side. The world cup is next year so that should be the highest priority. ODI & Test can take a backseat and full focus should be on T20s.

1) Drop Rizwan and Babar from T20 setup altogether.
2) Make Fakhar captain- the only senior batsman guaranteed a spot in T20.
3) Send Usman back to UAE. Send Tayab Tahir & Khushdil back to Domestic. They are not international cut.
4) Back Saim, Kamran Gulam, Agha Salman, Irfan Niazi - they have the game suited for T20s.
6) Invest in dynamic batsman - Mohammad Haris and Haider Ali.
7) Bring in some unconvential rookie- Khawaja Nafay.

Look at the batting now for the T20 setup. These eight batters should be given clear roles and then played on those positions even in PSL also.

Fakhar (c)
Saim
M Haris (wk)
Kamran Ghulam
Agha Salman
Irfan Niazi
Haider Ali
Khawaja Nafey


8) Invest in multi skill players- who can bat and ball and bring in balance.
Arafat Minhas, Qasim, Mubasir, Jahanand and Abbas Afridi.
Shadab Khan can reinvent himself as batsman who can bowl occasionally.

9) Invest in specialists spinners- Abrar and Sufiyan are enough.

10) Shaheen and Rauf should be discarded. Not good enough. Naseem can be persisted though.
Hasnain should also be kicked out.
11) A new rookie bowler can be tried out- Akif Javed

Lets look at the allrounders and Bowlers now

Arafat Minhas
Qasim
Mubasir
Shadab
Jahananad
Abbas Afridi
Naseem
Akif
Abrar
Sufiyan

So there you go a squad of 18 players which can be backed right through out the year. Maybe add 2 more players based on PSL to make it a pool of 20 players that can play modern T20 cricket.

 

[Savak]

Modern white ball cricket requires 360 stroke play, you can't have predictable one dimensional players which most Pakistani batsmen are as teams with the help of video analysts, support staffs and bowlers who are able to execute a given plan exploit it.

 

[deep82]

Modern white ball cricket requires 360 stroke play, you can't have predictable one dimensional players which most Pakistani batsmen are as teams with the help of video analysts, support staffs and bowlers who are able to execute a given plan exploit it.

No harm trying next set of players who can play modern, 360 innovative cricket.

M Haris, Haider have already shown that they possess the game for T20.
Khwaja Nafey has shown some positive traits in leagues.
Saim, Fakhar are first choice modern openers.
Agha, Kamran, Irfan can take their game in right direction under a new leadership.

Sincerely believe Pakistan has the right core with these 8 players for the T20. Most of them are young too paving way for their inclusion in ODI as well.

 

[Barragan]

Read Kamran Ghulam and T20 player in the same sentence - yeah, I'll stop right there and move on.

 

[deep82]

Read Kamran Ghulam and T20 player in the same sentence - yeah, I'll stop right there and move on.

Didn't he score 64(32) in one of the game against SA? With a clear defined role and position, he might fit in some role in T20 team.

 

[Rana]

A good start might be to obtain the notes Gary Kirsten had made and wanted to implement post Champion’s cup.

He was under PCB payroll at the time. You can ask him to provide his vision first, take it from there.

 

[deep82]

Shadab Khan as T20 captain is intereting. It may work out well.

T20s require multi dimesnional players and shadab is one of them with PSL experience.

A pakistan T20 team without Babar and Rizwan is the first step in right direction.

 

[BouncerGuy]

Shadab Khan as T20 captain is intereting. It may work out well.

T20s require multi dimesnional players and shadab is one of them with PSL experience.

A pakistan T20 team without Babar and Rizwan is the first step in right direction.

Shadab was in pretty bad form when he was dropped. And even now, he has not done any wonders in domestics. His only good side as of yet is that he won PSL trophy as captain. People are naming him like he is ricky pointing but yeah, PCB left us no choice actually.

 

[deep82]

Shadab was in pretty bad form when he was dropped. And even now, he has not done any wonders in domestics. His only good side as of yet is that he won PSL trophy as captain. People are naming him like he is ricky pointing but yeah, PCB left us no choice actually.

Fakhar would have been a good stopgap white ball captain for a year or two but his fitness won't allow that. Shadab is the next best solution in T20 cricket. Maybe , just maybe, he can do wonder with a new team without the burden of Babar and Rizwan.

 

[deep82]

Quite curious on whether Pakistan think tank intend to bring back Babar & Rizwan back in T20 fold. PSL 2025 promises to be quite a show for many of these players-do or die situation.

Babar and Rizwan will be desperate to perform in PSL 2025 to stake a claim. There are only two high profile tournament in next one year ( Asia Cup T20 & T20 World Cup) and if they fail to make in the T20 team, then its end of the road for them as they will gradually fade away playing in low profile games. Not sure if they can make it till 2027 ODI WC.

 

[Savak]

Pakistan needs to fix its bowling. Need early wickets with the new ball, wickets in the middle overs and death with minimal runs conceeded. Other teams have mastered the art of keeping runs down even if they don't get wickets. Unless we have bowlers who can get this equation right, don't expect the team to win too many games.

 

[Kianig89]

The depth in the squad is very thin , no reliable fast bowler and no aggressive middle order batsmen. پاکستان need 2-3 consistent players to improve their T20 side

 

[Justcrazy]

Who will do this? PCB has become a joke , they do not care about the team any more . There are bunch of people in important positions who just want to make money . Pakistan is far behind rest of the teams now , its not easy to come back. First of all , right men have to be brought in to change the system.

Then work at grass root level. Develop a proper system from which players will come through. Then right selectors who choose right player for right position , conditions and format. Its a long term plan.

 

[Justcrazy]

Quite curious on whether Pakistan think tank intend to bring back Babar & Rizwan back in T20 fold. PSL 2025 promises to be quite a show for many of these players-do or die situation.

Babar and Rizwan will be desperate to perform in PSL 2025 to stake a claim. There are only two high profile tournament in next one year ( Asia Cup T20 & T20 World Cup) and if they fail to make in the T20 team, then its end of the road for them as they will gradually fade away playing in low profile games. Not sure if they can make it till 2027 ODI WC.

They will be back , bookmark this post. And Pakistan will fail again to qualify for the semis.

 

[Josh]

Babar as a captain didn't prepare a good middle over pacer and spinner.

 

[Muhammad Saad]

What a strange thing to witness but my gut feeling is that for the first time our batting looks pretty good in T20 format and is actually better than our bowling , the fire power in the top 6 is comparable with the best even if consistency might not be there but we have batters on their day can single handedly change the outcome of the game and we have 3/4 such batters in our lineup , reminds me of English batting lineup when they decided to include high impact sloggers in their lineup but however on the contrary I am not seeing a single match winning bowler in our lineup and you don’t get the feeling that this bowler is our star bowler and can win matches for us on his day.

Looks like the times have changed completely for our team strength.

 

[Savak]

Can't base this off a series win against a short of confidence Bangladesh. Bigger tests will come against stronger teams. NZ made lightwork of the same team in NZ early on during the year.

 

[Muhammad Saad]

Can't base this off a series win against a short of confidence Bangladesh. Bigger tests will come against stronger teams. NZ made lightwork of the same team in NZ early on during the year.

That was just alien conditions and new players with no experience, but you can clearly see the talent is there and we definitely have match winning batters who can change the course of the game on flat tracks atleast.

However I am worried about our bowling as I am not seeing a single match winning bowler.

 

[Muhammad Saad]

I still think Usman Khan should play instead of Khushdil Shah as he is clearly a better batter than him.

 

[Muhammad Saad]

Shahdab Fahim and Khushdil are the weak links in our lineup and I am not confident about Abrar and Hasan Ali as well. We need to find replacement for them and then our team will be on right track.

Also Rauf needs to be play sparingly and we need to find his replacement soon as well.

 

[pakfan54588]

Forget about batting lineup oùr current t20i bowling lineup is one of the worse .faheem Hasan ali can easily crumble under pressure both have ability to lose you a match single handedly also haris rauf have regressed massively so it's not only batting our bowling is also very poor

 

[Muhammad Saad]

Forget about batting lineup oùr current t20i bowling lineup is one of the worse .faheem Hasan ali can easily crumble under pressure both have ability to lose you a match single handedly also haris rauf have regressed massively so it's not only batting our bowling is also very poor

Yep on par with Zim and BD at the moment or just slightly better.

 

[pakfan54588]

Yep on par with Zim and BD at the moment or just slightly better.

Yeah man i had hopes from akif javed but he is not the smartest around neither zaman khan have developed properly nor does ali raza,ubaid shah seem ready for international cricket .

 

[BunnyRabbit]

Mohammad Haris looks much more comfortable when used as an someone to take the attack to the opposition at no3. than he does as an opener. Moeen Ali and Santner were utilized this way by Dhoni effectively.

 

[BunnyRabbit]

Shahdab Fahim and Khushdil are the weak links in our lineup and I am not confident about Abrar and Hasan Ali as well. We need to find replacement for them and then our team will be on right track.

Also Rauf needs to be play sparingly and we need to find his replacement soon as well.

Shahdab Fahim and Khushdil are the weak links in our lineup and I am not confident about Abrar and Hasan Ali as well. We need to find replacement for them and then our team will be on right track.

Also Rauf needs to be play sparingly and we need to find his replacement soon as well.

Shadab when doing well looks a million bucks with the bat and can effortlessly hit boundaries at will. An inform Shadab is crucial to Pak doing well.
Regarding Khushdil, he still needs to work out his batting approach, he looks much better when he is attacking rather than defending.