Sarfaraz has been ruled out of the Test squad following his ordeal in the Peth Test. He only scored 7 runs in both innings, despite Mitchell Starc causing him all sorts of problems.
Pakistan named a 12-man squad for their Boxing Day match against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Monday, with Mohammad Rizwan replacing seasoned wicketkeeper Sarfaraz Ahmed. Sarfaraz has been ruled out of the Test squad following his ordeal in the Peth Test. He only scored 7 runs in both innings, despite Mitchell Starc causing him all sorts of problems.
Rizwan’s participation in Pakistan’s second Test team is one of three changes made for the highly anticipated match.
Pacer Khurram Shahzad has been ruled out of the series due to injury, while all-rounder Faheem Ashraf has also been ruled out following a poor test with bat and ball in Perth.
The most noticeable alteration, however, is Sarfraz Ahmed’s absence from the second Test.
His selection was heavily criticized due to his troubles in Australian circumstances. Sarfaraz has 239 runs scored at an average of 29.87 in 10 innings. Pakistan captain Shan Masood remarked that Sarfraz was endorsed due of his domestic performance and the focus and intensity he brought to the game.
“I doubt that one change would have changed the entire course of the game.” The rationale for playing Sarfaraz was similar to the reason for playing Aamer Jamal and Khurram Shahzad. People return to statistics, and Rizwan performs admirably in SENA. For starters, there is no competition between the two. They are both vital to the team. Any rivalry they have is healthy rivalry. We are aware of Rizwan’s actions, but we gave Sarfaraz the benefit of the doubt because he averaged 56.50 on his previous tour here in 2016. Yes, it’s been a while, but he’s also played red-ball routinely in the Quaid-e-Azam trophy in recent years,” Masood added, according to news reports.
“Rizwan has just returned from the World Cup, where he played a lot of white-ball cricket.” In addition, he had a hiatus in red-ball cricket since Sarfaraz took over for the New Zealand series. Sarfaraz delivered an exceptional effort, and Rizwan had not played much red-ball cricket. So there was a strategy. He was there, and he played red-ball cricket. Karachi had a fantastic season in which he was named tournament MVP, allowing us to train a player like Rizwan. If I had my way, I’d like to see both of them play, but that’s not going to happen. Now we believe Rizwan is ready, and we can allow Saifi some time to recover and return,” Masood also added.
Pakistan squad for the second Test:Imam-Ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique, Shan Masood (c), Babar Azam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Salman Ali Agha, Shaheen Afridi, Hasan Ali, Mir Hamza, Aamir Jamal, Sajid Khan.
