I find the comments of a former captain extremely weird when he criticized the board for sending a "weak" team to play the series. His exact words were "A lot of people already predicted a 3-0 result against Pakistan. How can you sideline your main players suddenly? If you want to run cricket like this, then go ahead."
The PCB has to develop a backbone and withstand this unnecessary criticism on their selections elicited on television by former captains and sports journalists.
There was nothing wrong with the selection for the Afghanistan series and infact, the selection committee must be lauded for selecting such a squad.
However, having said that, the selection committee now needs to build upon their selection and show that this wasn't a one-time exercise but there was some method behind sending the squad that they did.
The whole purpose of this series was to build up the bench strength and it can only be built up when you provide multiple chances across multiple series to players to showcase their talents.
The issue in Pakistan has always been the fascination with results. Nobody, right from the PCB down to the ordinary fan on the street is willing to sacrifice current wins in order to gain some potential players for the future. This culture needs to be eradicated. Delayed gratification is almost an unheard concept in Pakistan. Nobody seems to have the patience for it.
There is a high probability that the PCB, due to unnecessary pressure from former players and the media will revert to a full strength lineup against a weakened NZ lineup despite the World Cup being almost a year away.
The problem with that approach is that it would completely negate the progress of the players that were sent to Sharjah. The selection committee needs to realize that players like Saim, Tayyab, Shafique came from tracks where 220 wasn't a winning score to suddenly playing on tracks they haven't played in their lifetime. Compounded by playing against the best spin attack in world T20 cricket on the worst pitches for T20, you have to give a long rope to every batsman. Nobody needs to be considered a failure in this series (except Shadab's captaincy).
Every single player in the Afghanistan series deserves another shot against NZ at home. Make the same pitches as they were in the PSL and judge the young players on that.
Also, coming to Azam Khan, I see a lot of hate coming his way due to his fitness. First of all, if fitness was an issue, then he should not have been vouched for on this forum for selection. He was being hailed by everyone here during the PSL. Nothing has changed on the fitness radar for Azam Khan in two weeks. So to attribute his failure to fitness is disingenuous to say the least. Give him another series against NZ on true pitches and let's work from there. I'm a big fitness fan but you can't play both ways. If fitness is a criteria, then his selection can never be merited. But if you are going to vouch for him during the PSL for selection, then fitness cannot be brought in as an excuse for his failure.
In the end, I would reiterate my point that the selectors and PCB now need to sit down and show everyone whether their selections were a one-off or there was some method to this. If the senior players are recalled for the NZ series just because Pakistan lost a series against Afghanistan, it would signal to me that the PCB isn't serious at all in developing its bench strength.
