'They should have been given more chances' - Azhar Mahmood on Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad's axing

Pakistan are currently ICC’s number-one ranked T20I team, despite winning only a solitary game in the format in 2019. The 3-0 defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka at the Gaddafi Stadium rang the alarm bells after which Sarfaraz Ahmed was axed as a skipper as well as from the tour of Australia. Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal were two of the players, who got a recall to the national team.

Even as Shehzad scored 17 runs, Akmal got out for ducks in both the matches he played. Quite spontaneously, the duo was dropped from the Australia T20Is. The constant chopping and changing hasn’t gone down well with Azhar Mahmood, the former Pakistan bowling coach, by any means. He reckons that both Akmal and Shehzad should have been given a longer rope to show their mettle.

This seems to indicate a lack of direction: Azhar Mahmood

“It made no sense to side-line the players who got Pakistan to the number one rank and if we did bring back the likes of Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal, then at least they should have been given more chances to perform, instead of dropping them straight away,” Mahmood was quoted as saying in his exclusive blog in Pak Passion.

Mahmood didn’t mince any words in saying that there’s no proper direction to managing the team. He believes that the same has rattled a somewhat settled Pakistan T20I side. “This seems to indicate a lack of direction in the policies of the team management and this must have unsettled a somewhat set T20I side,” Mahmood, also a retired Pakistan all-rounder, stated.

After losing five T20Is on the trot, now the Pakistan Test team, led by Azhar Ali, is scheduled to play a couple of matches against Australia. The series starts on Thursday, November 21 with the opening Test at the Gabba in Brisbane followed by the one at the Adelaide Oval, starting November 29.

It will also mark the start of their campaign in the World Test Championship where they are the only team no not have played a single game. In December, Sri Lanka will tour Pakistan for a couple of Tests in Rawalpindi and Karachi respectively.

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