Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan out of Asia Cup squad

LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Sunday announced a 17-member squad that will feature in the upcoming tri-series and the Asia Cup, which does not include two heavyweights — Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan.

Salman Agha will Pakistan in the two T20 events scheduled to be held in the United Arab Emirates.

It is a unending patch of poor performances that have led to omitting Babar and Rizwan from the T20 cricket, with the former especially criticised for slow strike rate and dot balls.

The tri-series also involve Afghanistan and the UAE, which will commence on August 29 with the final to be played on September 7.

It would immediately be followed by Asia Cup that starts on September 9. Pakistan is placed in Group A along with India. The other two teams are Oman and the UAE.

In the first of the last two assignments, Pakistan failed miserably against Bangladesh, where the hosts defeated the Green Shirts 2-1 in the three-match T20 series.

However, the hard-fought series against West Indies saw Pakistan emerging winner 2-1.

But West Indies won the ODI series 2-1.

Speaking at a press conference, PCB Director High Performance Aqib Javed said Babar and Rizwan could again represent Pakistan in T20 cricket by improving their performance.

THE BABAR CONUNDRUM

Pakistan have failing in white-ball cricket mainly because of slow run rate and too many dot balls amid the absence of hard-hitting batters both at the top and middle/lower-middle order.

And this weakness is even more visible in T20 cricket.

However, the problem with Babar is further complicated in white-ball cricket due to the fact that he has been unable to convert good starts and 50s into big scores. It means he is shifting pressure to other batsmen who give away their wickets in an attempt to increase the run rate.

SQUAD:

Salman Ali Agha (c), Abrar Ahmed, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Hussain Talat, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Haris (wk), Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Waseem Jnr, Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Salman Mirza, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Sufyan Moqim.