I disagree. Butt was hands down the best death bowler of the tournament in the Emerging Teams Asia Cup. He produced an absolutely insane death bowling spell under pressure in the most high pressure game in the tournament, the semi final versus India, who were favorites to win even at the 47th over. 22 runs needed off 24 balls with 4 wickets in hand, and he restricts them to 4 dots and 2 singles. Built pressure rewards a wicket in the next over and he comes back for the 50th. 8 runs needed off 6 balls one of the batsmen already set at 28 runs. A single boundary could turn the tables.
He comes out and produces 1 W 0 1 1 1, and clinches us the victory by 4 runs, i.e. one boundary and we wouldn’t be here drooling over Rohail Nazir’s tournament-winning 113 (111) in the final against Bangladesh.
His economy in this match was at an astonishing 4.30 over the 10 overs he bowled, better than Hasnain (6.10), Akif Javed (5.37) and Umer Khan (5.00) all of whom are VERY highly rated by PP.
So he deserves a chance, especially with Haris Rauf at the other end for the death overs. This guy shows amazing temperament under pressure and the ability to anticipate batsmen in high stakes matches, and has shown he can replicate those performances. Him and Haris bowling overs 17-20 could be the difference we need in the upcoming world T20, and at the very least Amad Butt deserves a run of at least 3 T20s to showcase his talent.
All of this combined with the fact that he can power hit down the order seals the deal for me. In the next match, the final of the tournament, he came in at number 7 halfway through the 49th over and scored 15 (7), with the first 5 of those through 4 balls of just rotating the strike effectively to the set batsman (something we desperately need our national team to learn, if you remember the the Pak-Australia T20s) - and doesn’t play a single dot ball in the process.
When Shakeel, the set batsman, gets out, he takes the strike and responsibility by himself in the last three balls of the 50th over to face Sumon Khan, one of Bangladesh’s upcoming prospects bowling at 140 with great outswingers and intelligence (one of their better bowling prospects in a long while), and also in hot form as the highest wicket taker of this same tournament at 14 wickets in just 5 matches (Sumon had two 4 wicket hauls including against India where he got century man and decently highly rated Indian prospect Armaan out at 104). For reference, Akif Javed, Hasnain, and Umer Khan were all playing this same tournament, all less successful than Sumon with the closest being Hasnain with 13 in 5 matches. Well anyways, Butt takes the last 3 balls for himself and hits a 6 straight off the bat (first boundary), a dot, and then a 4.
High pressure match, final of the tournament. Gets the score to 301 from 288 singlehandedly in this last over. Say what you will, but this guy has potential, he has temperament, he has the death bowling, and he has the T20 batting strike rate. To me he’s the perfect man for the job for this world cup, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him win us a game or two by himself.
Right now, he just needs to convert his performances to the international stage. I don’t know what other domestic death-bowling power-hitting allrounders you have in mind instead for the T20 format, I’d actually love to know. I’d be very excited to see more talent that has performed well domestically and deserves a call up. But until then, you can’t tell me someone deserving missed out for a hack.
Misbah made a good decision. For once. Let’s see how it works out.
, thought he was talking about current one 
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