Afridi should have been in squad: Imran
Karachi, Oct 22: Celebrated former captain Imran Khan on Friday said Pakistan's success on the forthcoming tour of Australia will largely depend how the batting performs
23-Oct-1999
Karachi, Oct 22: Celebrated former captain Imran Khan on Friday said
Pakistan's success on the forthcoming tour of Australia will largely
depend how the batting performs.
"If the batting rolls, then Pakistan hold an outstanding chance of
winning their first-ever Test series in Australia," the legendary Khan
commented from Lahore.
However, Imran cautioned the followers of the game by saying that it
would be very difficult for the Pakistan batsmen to excel on hard and
bouncy tracks of Brisbane, Hobart and Perth where the Test matches
will be played.
"The wickets there are considered to be one of the fastest with a very
good bounce. And our batsmen are not used to those type of surfaces
because they (batsmen) don't get them in domestic cricket," Imran he
said.
Imran, who toured Australia twice as captain, further stated that the
structure of domestic cricket was such that no batsman could develop a
text book technique. "Our former great batsmen developed those
techniques while playing in the English County Championships," he
maintained.
"The exclusion of Shahid Afridi is a tragedy. The boy has the talent
and potential and I firmly believe he should have been in the squad,"
he pointed out when asked to comment on the selection of the squad.
Imran said Afridi was a replica of Saeed Anwar who became a success
only after becoming a permanent Test opener. "In one-day cricket, you
get away with unorthodox shots but you mature as a batsman by playing
in Tests only."