Saud & Saad are the future for me. (Both)
Saud picks up the length early and he pulls aswell as hooks. He is not compulsive. He shifts his weight very well on the back foot. I do not see any weakness in his batting against Short ball. Players do get out on short ball but if they fear the short ball and if this is there main mode of dismissal against short ball than this is a concern for sure. Have you seen any evidence of this in Saud's batting ?
Yes I am fully aware of Saad's SR in last and current FC season. This is why He is in my Picture. Saad had a fantastic last FC season and good Pakistan A exposure aswell where he performed well. He should be in the mix.
But Saud is technically more sound than Saad, he has more time to play pacers than Saad since he picks the length early compared to Saad and he has more allround shots in his book compared to Saad especially against pacers hence for SA tour I would prefer Saud over Saad. Saud is more dynamic. These surfaces are tough and bowlers are great so you need batsmen who can offset quality pacers like the way Babar did today. For that you need to have shots all round the wicket in your armoury.
I have in mind top FC performers aswell as top Pakistan A performers of last Season and collectively in my view only
Shan Masood, Fakhar Zaman, Saad Ali, Saud Shakeel, Umar Akmal, Umar Amin are the ones with acceptable domestic and List A Strike Rates in Last 2 seasons.
Abid Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Usman Salahuddin and Fawad Alam have scored lots of runs but there SR is not acceptable. It takes 5 to 10 points dip in Int Cricket.