I used to like him and Cheema but later on i found them both to be slightly over rated.
Reason was the way they drafted players.
It was i think PSL 1 or PSL 3, and both him and Cheema were against picking Asif Ali as they were going for names that were domestic stalwarts. Misbah eventually forced them to go for Asif Ali and after PSL 3, all were shocked when Asif pulled off those blinders in the play off.
I think similar thing happened when Misbah also went for Imran Khalid during PSL 1 aswell.
Still i respected them both till PSL 4. But i think after the 5th or 6th season i found them both to be flawed and irrational.
When Shadab Khan was given captaincy, these guys were oking every dumb move made by Shadab. From season 1 up until season 8, Islamabad had a common reoccurring problem. Their bowling was weak, especially their spin bowling attack.
Now when Hassan Ali was with PZ and had gone out of form, Ali asked PZ to release him (Wahab wanted to retain him and begged him). Since Shadab was captain, Shadab had convinced Ali to come over to United as both were best buddies aswell.
Ali did exactly that. Islamabad united had the first pick in the draft and Qalanders had the 2nd picked. And guess who was the guy Qalanders picked? While United went on to use their first draft pick on Hassan Ali, lahore qalanders were already celebrating, because they were able to capture the rights on Rashid Khan. Rashid khan was up for grabs by United and these guys still went for Hassan Ali.
Ever since than Lahore Qalanders have retain the rights on Rashid Khan.
Than came the wicket keeper move. Islamabad united went on to trade Iftikhar Ahmed for Azam Khan while retaining Asif Ali. The issue was that Ifti, Faheem and Asif had category issue going on so all three couldnt be retained. So instead of givinf Asif away, they gave Iftikhar away. Iftikhar was scoring runs in every domestic tournament that season and was a handy bowling option. During the same psl, Shadab gets injured or maybe Zeeshan Zameer, and they had to force Asif Ali to bowl them a few overs.
Than these guys have failed to develop any youngster. Every season, Islamabad United picks a player from the emerging category. If he is a bowler, he is not given an over or barely gets one over. If he is a batter, they push him down to no.8 and never let him bat.
Also their emerging player, tends to be a sifarishi player or a friend of Shadab Khan in Islamabad/Rawalpindi.
They picked Rohail (the keeper), while everyone knew he doesnt bat fast. But he is a buddy of Shadab. They picked Nasir Nawaz, another buddy of Shadab. They picked Shamyl hussain, son of Talat Hussain the journalist. They also picked Musa Khan, Shadabs buddy (and maybe Waqars pick). They wasted Mubasir Khan. They even had Abrar Ahmed, and he was very rarely given 4 overs, while shadab bowled his full qouta.
Abrar would only be given 4 overs when he was being hit for runs. They than even went abut further and traded/released Abrar Ahmed aswell.
As for the batting. Yes Islamabad united scores alot of runs, but that is because in season 1, these guys discovered a flaw in the system. That is that, overseas batters play care free cricket in PSL as their selection doesnt depend upon the PSL performance, compared to Local batters who bat abit selfish. So they tend to bulk the upper order batting of Islamabad with 3 - 4 overseas batters and thats why they have high scoring games.
Because of this, they ended up releasing Babar Azam, Sahibzada Farhan and Kamran Ghulam, who were all originally first drafted in PSL by United but were not developed.
Now i will be honest, i am not sure how much of these decisions Rehan made or Cheema made, but the fact is this duo has been highly over rated in Pakistan, and especially in the PSL. And if you follow Islamabad united with a very close eye, you can see through their massive flaws.
I kind of hate the Qalanders for their 12 months celebration that goes on after winning a PSL, but i do admire the fact that the reason why the Qalanders won the 3 of the last 4 PSLs was because their drafting is top notch. They dont care if you are an overseas or a local player. They dont give a rats ass who is doing your sifarish. Without having a self proclaimed data guy, they end up making the best draft picks, and those draft picks give them the best team.
The bowling attack of Zaman khan, rauf, shaheen and rashid Khan became a big problem for these guys. Their biggest regret was not able to retain Irshan somewhere. Recently they found another gem in the name of Naeem.
Even Multan Sultan had done some very good drafting under that Azhar guy. The success of reaching the finals for Multan was slowly on their emerging players and the ability to retain them. Dahani, Abbas Afridi, Ihsanullah and under bowling who used to point to the skies were emerging picks that were retained later on lower categories.
Azhar goes to KK, Multan stood exposed and look how Kk did this season.
So sorry for this long rant, but sorry to say, the IU 2 analyst are highly over rated.
