I have seen better players than Fawad Alam in the past three years: Inzamam-ul-Haq

Pakistan batter Fawad Alam’s comeback to the team has been nothing short of a dream run. He has so far scored five tons, four of them coming within 22 innings, and has been the rock of the Pakistan batting lineup. The southpaw scored his fifth ton in Kingston against West Indies and has become the talk of the town ever since.

But fans and experts were left wondering where Alam was for ten years and why the selectors kept ignoring him despite scoring a truckload of domestic runs. Now chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq has spoken about it and said he has seen better players than Alam in the last three years. Alam was recalled to the team last year and since then has performed exceptionally well with the bat in hand in against top teams.

But Inzamam thinks there were better batters in domestic cricket than Alam. “Fawad Alam is an outstanding player but in the last three years there are others at the top of the list,” Inzamam told ESPNcricinfo. 

“We got him here in the nets but, we found Saad Ali to be better, and the decision to prefer Saad was unanimous, with input from all the coaching staff and captain. Fawad is a good player and, we obviously can’t ignore his career average; that is why he was brought into the camp. During my tenure, I have given 12 to 14 players an opportunity and none of them have disappointed us. If you look back in the past three seasons, there are players who have scored more runs than Fawad Alam.”

Inzamam-ul-Haq feels there are many things while selecting a player

The former Pakistan batter further opined that as chief selectors our job is to look beyond statistics and numbers and insisted that when he took over as a selector, there were better players than Alam.

“Dropping any player doesn’t mean we are disregarding them. It’s easy to pick players following scorecards or statistics, but there are many more things we take into consideration. I am not sure why Fawad wasn’t picked in the past before me but, if you ask me about my tenure as chief selector, I have seen better players.”