What should be the Pakistan squad for the Test series against South Africa?

[Babar_Azam_fan]

Who should be dropped

Which new faces should be brought in

 

[Babar_Azam_fan]

Shan (deserves chances)
Imam
Azhar (farewell series) (back up opener)
Babar *
Saud
Agha Salman (2nd spinner)
Rizwan +
Y Shah
H Ali
M Abbas (till u groom some replacement)
S Afridi

K Ghulam
H Sohail (bench him)
S Ahmed
Nauman Ali
F Ashraf
N Shah (bench him)

 

[iRfaN_LA]

Shan (deserves chances)
Imam
Azhar (farewell series) (back up opener)
Babar *
Saud
Agha Salman (2nd spinner)
Rizwan +
Y Shah
H Ali
M Abbas (till u groom some replacement)
S Afridi

K Ghulam
H Sohail (bench him)
S Ahmed
Nauman Ali
F Ashraf
N Shah (bench him)

There is no such thing as farewell series for Azhar. If he scores a 100 on a dead pitch, he is not going anywhere for another year.

 

[Thunderbolt14]

Haris Sohail should be the first to be dropped. If Mohammad Wasim is feeling adventurous and wants to risk upsetting the Karachi mafia, I will follow that up with Fawad Alam.

Then comes Azhar Ali. He gets third chop only because he’s already an established figure in the team and has a recent century. That probably buys him one more series. But if Wasim is again feeling adventurous, he will be the next name.

Next comes Yasir Shah. I would also have to feel adventurous considering he’s a favorite of Misbah’s, and just picked up 3 wickets, but if I were Wasim I would take that risk on and begin developing a twin set of younger spinners. Yasir won’t make it to the next Test championship, so no point wasting series that can be used for development. Zafar Gohar automatically comes in since he’s already around the Test team. Question still remains on the second spinner.

Our lineup now looks like this:

1. Shan Masood
2. Abid Ali
3.
4. Babar Azam (c)
5.
6. Mohammad Rizwan (wk)
7. Zafar Gohar
8.
9.
10. Mohammad Abbas
11. Shaheen Afridi

Bench: Naseem (selected so he can be worked on and brought back up to his 145-150kph natural pace)

I leave Shan and Abid in because you can’t drop the entire team at once. They also have very good performances in the last year which mean they’re still more reliable than Fawad or Haris Sohail.

Populating the rest of the team with highly rated younger prospects who are performing exceptionally well in domestics, we bring in Saud Shakeel and Kamran Ghulam to plug the batting gaps (with Haider Ali given a directive to play more first class cricket and tighten his technique, and should be told that assuming he performs, he is a sureshot pick given his talent).

Next, we plug the second spinner gap. Our main options who can be built into the team for 3-5 years of guaranteed form are Zahid Mehmood and Sajid Khan. I don’t think there’s much of a difference between them, but considering Shaheen and Abbas are guaranteed picks, we would also prefer the spinner to be able to bat. Sajid can hold up a bat, so he makes the cut.

There is one remaining spot for the best possible pacer - Hassan Ali is an automatic pick as he is dominating domestics, already has international experience, and is young too whereas your next best option is Waqas Maqsood.

That thought process yields us the following lineup:

1. Shan Masood
2. Abid Ali
3. Kamran Ghulam
4. Babar Azam (c)
5. Saud Shakeel
6. Mohammad Rizwan (wk)
7. Zafar Gohar
8. Sajid Khan
9. Hassan Ali
10. Mohammad Abbas
11. Shaheen Afridi

I think this team is fantastic.

 

[b.lesner]

Haha whoever thinks Azhar is getting dropped is delusional because M Wasim is his mentor and he didn't want Azhar to retire from ODIs and even said to younis to make him understand and wasim was even saying Azhar Ali won the champions trophy so wasim is chief selector uptill 2023 so Azhar isn't going anywhere untill that.

 

[saeed5646]

Don't expect many changes.
Hasan ali will be definitely in the squad .Sajid also have out side chance

 

[Abdullah Rabbani]

Haha whoever thinks Azhar is getting dropped is delusional because M Wasim is his mentor and he didn't want Azhar to retire from ODIs and even said to younis to make him understand and wasim was even saying Azhar Ali won the champions trophy so wasim is chief selector uptill 2023 so Azhar isn't going anywhere untill that.

Bary sy bara nomana ha Pakistan cricket mai kis kis sy jaan churai bhai