Pakistan cricket selectors have announced a 15-man squad for ICC World Cup Twenty20 2010 which will be played later this year. In this squad, only nine players have been picked who have the experience to play the Twenty20 World Cup 2009. Twenty20 World Cup 2010 will be a tough competition for defending champion Pakistan. They will have to struggle hard to defend their trophy. Pakistan won the trophy in 2009 after defeating Sri Lanka in the final match at Lords. Fans will be watching to see if they can hold the crown for the second time. Pakistan has been placed in Group A along with Bangladesh and Australia. They will start this tournament with the match against Bangladesh on 1st May, 2010. Here is the squad:
Pakistan Squad for T20 World Cup 2010: Salman Butt, Mohammad Hafeez, Khalid Latif, Misbah-ul-Haq, Fawad Alam, Umar Akmal, Shahid Afridi (Captain), Abdul Razzaq, Yasir Arafat, Hammad Azam, Kamran Akmal (Wicket Keeper), Umar Gul, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Aamer, Saeed Ajmal.
Reserves: Shahzaib Hasan, Mohammad Sami, Raza Hasan, Naveed Yasin, Sarfraz Ahmed (Wicket Keeper).
Among 15 players, there is only one uncapped player in the squad. He is Hammad Azam. Hammad Azam is an all rounder. He impressed the selectors with his performance in U19 world cup in New Zealand where Pakistan lost to Australia in the final match.
I think that fans will be surprised for the exclusion of Shoaib Malik and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan. These two experienced players have not been able to get their place in the squad for their long term ban.
There was confusion about the selection of captain for the upcoming Twenty20 World Cup. Selectors announced Pakistan squad without naming a captain. After a long dispute, Shahid Afridi was named captain for Pakistan cricket team. Shahid Afridi was seen leading Pakistan cricket team in the last Twenty20 World Cup when Younis Khan took retirement from the shortest version of cricket.
Pakistan T20 captain Shahid Afridi is not satisfied with the squad. He wanted some changes in the main squad. He also talked with Chief selector Mohsin Khan and Coach Waqar Younis and discussed about the team. May be, from next year, captain’s input will be considered prior to the team’s selection. But it is not possible now. However, if you look at the squad then you can see that Pakistan’s batting line up looks little bit shaky. How can they defend their title with these batsmen?
Ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup, Misbah-ul-Haq, Salman Butt and Mohammad Hafeez have been recalled.
Who will open for Pakistan? It seems that Salman Butt will open along with Mohammad Hafeez. The inclusion of Salman Butt in the squad will be a big challenge for him to prove his skill in the shortest version of this game. I am hopeful about the performance of Mohammad Hafeez in this upcoming Twenty20 World Cup 2010. He has become able to make his place in the squad after showing his excellent performance in the RBS T20 Cup.
The inclusion of two Akmal brothers was perhaps a good decision taken by Pakistan Cricket Board. Both Umar Akmal and Kamran Akmal will tour the Caribbean country with Pakistan cricket team. Umar Akmal is a young promising batsman. He has a lot of potential to be one of the future star players. I think I don’t need to use more words for Kamran Akmal. You already know that he is an effective wicketkeeper-batsman. He will be a big threat for the opposite teams.
Misbah-ul-Haq is one of the most senior players who have been selected for the forthcoming T20 world cup. Misbah-ul-Haq had been left out from all three forms of cricket game last year by the selection committee. The only reason was that he was not consistent in performance. However, he was picked up in Test squad at the request of Mohammad Yousuf but his bad performance dropped him again from the ODI squad.
The inclusion of Abdul Razzaq will be a big boost for Pakistan cricket team. He is consistently performing well. His all rounder performance may lead Pakistan team to win the crown for second time. However, Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi went under huge criticism after being found ball tempering. For this incident, he has been punished twice. ICC banned him for two matches while PCB fined him. He was also punished for his poor performance in Australia tour. Despite his punishment, Afridi remains in the running. Yasir Arafat is another all rounder.
Pakistan selectors have included only one wicketkeeper in squad. I think they will select second wicketkeeper for any necessary. If Kamran Akmal is injured then the second wicketkeeper can replace him. Sarfraz Ahmed is a wicket keeper and he is in the reserve team.
In this squad I can see only two experienced fast bowlers- Umar Gul and Mohammad Asif. They both are good and wicket taking bowler. But I hope that selectors will also think about Mohammad Sami. He is also a good fast bowler. Mohammad Sami has been included in the reserved squad. Saeed Ajmal is the only specialist spinner in Pakistan squad. Pakistan cricket team can cover their lack of batting with their strong bowling line up.
Perhaps poor ground fielding is the main problem for Pakistan cricket team. We have seen them to suffer a lot for their weak fielding. What will they do to improve their ground fielding?
At the end, we can say that they are not a very balanced team.
Pakistan squad for Twenty20 world cup 2010 contains only 9 players who were a part of 2009 tournament which Pak team won. Defending their champions tag will not be easy for green team as several of their players were punished for poor performance in Australia 4 months ago and hence quite a few newer players have been given opportunity in this West Indies world cup.
