Mohammad Amir takes a cheeky dig at PCB after his omission from T20I squad; deletes the tweet later

After a lot of hullabaloos and diplomatic tension, the Bangladesh Cricket Board finally agreed to go on a full tour to Pakistan. Initially, the BCB had decided to play a limited-overs series only. However, earlier this week the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced that Bangladesh will play three Twenty-20 Internationals (T20Is), a single One-Day International (ODI) and a two-match Test series on its soil.

Bangladesh’s tour, though, will not be a continuous and singular process as they will visit Pakistan on two instalments to play all the matches. The three-match T20I series will be played between January 24 and 27 which it will be followed by a Test match from February 7. The Bangla Tigers will next visit Pakistan in April for the one-off ODI and the second Test, to be played between April 5 and 9.

Meanwhile, the PCB on Thursday announced a 16-member squad for the T20I series. Three uncapped players have been included, while the experienced duo of Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez has also received a recall into the squad which will be captained by Babar Azam.

Mohammad Amir replies to Pakistan’s cricket presenter Zainab Abbas

However, cricket fans were left surprised to see Mohammad Amir missing from the squad list, given he retired from Test cricket to concentrate on his white-ball game for Pakistan. Taking to her official Twitter handle, famous Pakistani cricket presenter Zainab Abbas expressed her shock as well to not see Amir.

No worries chill everyone i will come back stronger InshAllah ☺️

— Mohammad Amir (@iamamirofficial) January 16, 2020

Sharing a picture of the Pakistani squad, she wrote, “Also – Mohammad Amir just took 6 wickets in the BPL to take his team through, why exactly has he been omitted from the squad?”

Unexpectedly, Amir himself commented under her tweet, “Reason test cricket.” After his premature retirement from Test cricket in July last year he faced staunch criticism from every corner as he was seen playing foreign T20 leagues while Pakistan Test team suffered humiliation in Australia.

Though Amir has clarified many a time that his decision to retire from Test cricket was to manage his workload, his words fell to deaf ears and his comment on Twitter after going missing from the squad was a clear dig at his critics and the PCB itself. However, he soon deleted the tweet and replaced it with a promise that he will get back stronger.

~Written by Niladry Sarkar