Sameer Minhas v Babar Azam: Who should open the batting for Pakistan with Farhan?

[Muhammad Saad]

Pak can play pentagular tournament in Dubai pitches (Drop in Perth pitches) which have alot more bounce then local domestic pitches plus help for the spin as well , this will actually gauge which player to select for national team.

 

[Muhammad Saad]

Currently we can't say anything about Maaz , Shamyl or Sameer unless we see them playing on bouncy wicket against consistent 140k+ disciplined bowlers and they all 3 doesn't look comfortable in Dubai against England Lions.

Out of young talent only Hasan Nawaz and Saim Ayub has the talent to play under such conditions but they don't have the brain to not throw their wicket away.

 

[Cric1234]

Currently we can't say anything about Maaz , Shamyl or Sameer unless we see them playing on bouncy wicket against consistent 140k+ disciplined bowlers and they all 3 doesn't look comfortable in Dubai against England Lions.

Out of young talent only Hasan Nawaz and Saim Ayub has the talent to play under such conditions but they don't have the brain to not throw their wicket away.

Young players are not like players over 30 they can show quick improvement Maaz and Sameer have quickly adapted to PSL and are already better in terms of strike rate than International players...... At least we now have batsmen for the future who have decent potential in powerplay in T20 and ODI. One of the reason for poor performance in tournaments in last 4 years was our top order I mean we had Babar Rizwan Imam Abdullah in there it was hard to watch them fail to score quickly enough.

 

[Kianig89]

Babar has a strong backing of guys like Misbah as @Rana has mentioned above

So then Misbah is to blame for it , than Babar

 

[Katwalindian]

So if domestic cricket is poor so what's the criteria of national team selection?

Pakistan domestic is not that poor...saud shakeel averages 48 in domestic and sane in internationals in tests...... same as salman agha averaging 40 in domestic and 40 in test cricket....

 

[Katwalindian]

Maaz and Minhas should be our T20 openers in a year or so and definitely for the next T20 WC. If Farhan can prove he is more than a minnow basher by then that would be great and he can be considered. Babar will likely regress more by then and is getting on in age. I expected him to play on for another 5-7 years but his hand-eye coordination seems to be weaker than it was.

He is literally highest scorer in t20 wc...... is england and srilanka minnows?

 

[Katwalindian]

Only in Pakistan, you start comparing a newbie with a veteran. Babar's T20I career is already over , so no point bashing him or bringing him in discussion like this. Farhan Maaz & Sameer are three potential openers for Pakistan.

Instead of sameer I will still go with fakhar for time being with maaz at 3 and farhan and fakhar to open......

 

[RizwanT20Champ]

He is literally highest scorer in t20 wc...... is england and srilanka minnows?

Highest scorer based on bashing Namibia. Against SENAI teams highest scorer saar averaged 31.5 and even against England he was playing run a ball before hitting Topley McGrath for 2 chikkay and getting out. I won't even talk about the what should have been a match losing statpadding knock against minnow bowling attack of SL. We will continue to suffer if we have tullar fans justifying his tuk tuk against SENAI and do bhangra over minnow bashing. This tullar made a documentary shamelessly after the sixes against Bhumrah when we lost all 3 matches and where he struck at 122 vs India in the 3 matches in the Asia Cup.

 

[RyanRyan10]

So then Misbah is to blame for it , than Babar

Both are to be blamed

 

[Katwalindian]

Highest scorer based on bashing Namibia. Against SENAI teams highest scorer saar averaged 31.5 and even against England he was playing run a ball before hitting Topley McGrath for 2 chikkay and getting out. I won't even talk about the what should have been a match losing statpadding knock against minnow bowling attack of SL. We will continue to suffer if we have tullar fans justifying his tuk tuk against SENAI and do bhangra over minnow bashing. This tullar made a documentary shamelessly after the sixes against Bhumrah when we lost all 3 matches and where he struck at 122 vs India in the 3 matches in the Asia Cup.

Still better than rizwan.... who makes sure pakistan never win match by staying till end and still loosing ........ Asia cup final 2022 play till 16th over and run rate rises to 15 per over........ and likes of chacha iftikhar and chacha asif knew they had to hit from first ball...... most selfish cricketer of all time rizwan........

 

[RizwanT20Champ]

Still better than rizwan.... who makes sure pakistan never win match by staying till end and still loosing ........ Asia cup final 2022 play till 16th over and run rate rises to 15 per over........ and likes of chacha iftikhar and chacha asif knew they had to hit from first ball...... most selfish cricketer of all time rizwan........

Rizwan in Asia Cup 2022 won a match vs India and did better than tulla Farhan in Asia Cup 2025. Prove me wrong with numbers or zip it.

 

[jnaveen1980]

Pakistan is in a situation where they can do experiments as much as they want . As it is they are way behind other countries . They have to keep experimenting.

 

[RedwoodOriginal]

You're getting agitated like Irfan Pathan for a mere opinion.
Sameer is someone who should be coached by proper coaches and not guys like Imran Farhat etc in the domestic whose advice would be just see off the 2 good bowlers in the opposition and feast on the rest of the below average bowlers of our domestic teams.

Nah you're just out of touch

 

[GudduBadmash]

Rizwan in Asia Cup 2022 won a match vs India and did better than tulla Farhan in Asia Cup 2025. Prove me wrong with numbers or zip it.

Precisely he scored 70+ in two consecutive T20 matches against India at two consecutive world tournaments. Someone called Sachin fan would logically hate him because both defeats were unexpected and we have been royally embarrassed since

 

[shamaan786]

So if domestic cricket is poor so what's the criteria of national team selection?

Saying the domestic cricket is poor doesn't mean that isn't the criteria.