Dean Jones surprised by Mohammad Amir, Wahab Riaz and Hasan Ali’s snub from PCB central contracts

Dean Jones, the former Australian cricketer, was taken aback after Mohammad Amir, Wahab Riaz and Hasan were left out of the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) central contracts. In the last few months, Amir and Wahab made the headlines after their decisions to sideline Test cricket. Even as Amir has already retired, the latter decided to take a break from the longer format.

Recently, former seamer Mohammad Asif said that Amir didn’t fulfill his obligations towards Pakistan cricket. Hasan, on the other, has gone downhill after his emergence following the 2017 Champions Trophy. The pacer was dropped midway from the 2019 World Cup. Ever since, he has been jostling with injuries and hasn’t donned the national colours for the last 11 months.

Dean Jones expressed surprise

Jones, who was the head coach of the Karachi Kings in the 2020 Pakistan Super League (PSL), feels that with a couple of T20 World Cups ahead, PCB’s decision was ‘bizarre’. The veteran took to Twitter and wrote, “With 2 x T20 World Cups in a short time? Bizarre.” Both Amir and Wahab weren’t picked in Pakistan’s home series against Bangladesh.

As far as the central contracts are concerned, Test skipper Azhar Ali and young Pakistan sensation Shaheen Shah Afridi moved up to category A. Babar Azam not only retained his spot in the category A, but was also appointed as the skipper of the ODI team after being named as the T20I captain.

Naseem Shah, who became the youngest to take a Test hat-trick in Rawalpindi after his debut in November 2019, made an entry into category C. Recently, former fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar, also known as the Rawalpindi Express, said that he has been glimpses of himself in the young pacer.

Sarfaraz Ahmed and Yasir Shah was in category A last time around, but got demoted to Category B. Even as Shah is still a regular part of the Test team, Sarfaraz was dropped after Pakistan’s 0-3 defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka in the T20Is in Lahore. He has now lost captaincy in all the three formats as well. Mohammad Rizwan, Abid Ali and Shan Masood got promoted to Category B.