This is my team based on what i think are the three most important statistics for a great t20 player (AVE, SR, SIXES).
RUNS AVE SR SIXES
Kamran Akmal 432 61 173 26
Mukhtar Ahmed 305 43 178 18
Sohaib Maqsood 287 41 158 20
Faheem Ashraf 43 43 215 4
Asif Ali 178 35 160 13
Sohail Akhtar 180 45 160 12
Nasir Nawaz 67 33 142 4
Hussain Talat 224 56 131 9
Hammad Azam 157 31 146 11
Agha Salman 97 97 161 7
Aamer Yamin 113 22 131 5
Team is composed mostly of power hitters, surprisingly many of these are medium paced all rounders. The team was picked keeping in mind the needs of our current T20 and ODI 2019 WC squad i.e. six hitters, high SR, high AVE. This team is a bit weak in the bowling with Yamin, Ashraf and Hammad as our fast/medium bowlers, Agha Salman as the spinner, and Nasir, Sohail, and Talat as medium pacers. We already have great bowlers like Amir, Hassan, Rumman, Usman, Imad, Shadab, so this particular team is loaded with hitters from top to bottom, with the goal of building bench strength in areas our int teams are currently lacking. Everyone on this team has license to hack with the only goal of entertaining the crowds and putting up 200 plus totals, and of course finding great role players for 2019 WC.
Would love to see a 7-game series between this team and the team that played the last t20 against Sri Lanka in Lahore. (Zaman / Amin / Babar / Malik / Hafeez / Sarfraz / Imad / Shadab / Hasan / Amir / Rumman). My guess is the stadiums would be packed to watch the top 25 t20 players in the country go head to head in an intense 7 game series, esp if PCB hired the right marketing firm.
Some other players who had good to great stats in the tournament:
Salman Butt (great average, low SR, low Sixes - I wouldnt mind seeing him get limited chances in test side)
Ahmed Shehzad (excellent stats - definitely needs psychiatric help - would only make him a better int player)
Sami Aslam (fantastic talent - excellent for test and ODI)
Sahibzada Farhan (Super talent - hopefully a future star - suited for ODIs and T20s)
Shan Masood (great numbers in tournament - but a test specialist with not so great international results)
Khurram Manzoor (Good numbers - can't believe he is not a regular in our test team)
Mohammad Hafeez (specialist off spinner - perhaps he can be AS psychiatrist and PCB can save some money)
Imam ul Haq (Test specialist - not sure if he will be a great ODI player but time will tell)
Bilal Asif (great economy rate on flat pitches - i thought he was a power hitter but I havent seen much yet)
Sohail Tanvir (good stats, but we all know very well what he has to offer to our international team)
Khurrum Shehzad (164 SR, 10 sixes in the tournament - good stats but dont know much about him)
Umar Amin (high SR, high 6s, decent average of 36 - Should be getting chances for all three formats - I hope that he gets enough chances and becomes a Pakistani great over a long career)
Saad Ali (may not be a t20 player - but we may be looking at a future ODI great for Pakistan - great first class numbers too)
Did not want to pick the perennial TTF Kamran Akmal in the side but his numbers speak for themselves. Maybe replace him with Umar Akmal since he is younger and potentially fitter.
Or you could replace Kamran with sarfraz and choose this side against weaker teams like Lanka, Windies, Zimbabwe where you could afford to lose a few games in exchange for building bench strength for 2019 world cup. We will need some late order power hitters for the 2019 WC regardless of hafeez bowling situation.
Cheers!
