The Pakistan's squad for the upcoming Asia Cup, which was announced of late, saw some major changes which is drawing a lot of flak from the veteran cricketers. The absence of Shoaib Malik and Hasan Ali has put a question mark on the credibility and seriousness of Pakistan's cricket Board (PCB).
There have also been debates surrounding the lack of balance in the Pakistan middle-order and amid all the furore, country's star former bowler Tauseef Ahmed believes that the PCB has failed to ‘settle’ on a team.
“Ye rona dhona toh bohot puraana hai (this has been going on for long now). You didn't try to settle the team. The same players that were there a few years ago are coming back in some way or the other. When something this crucial coming up, you go back to those players about whom you once said that they should leave cricket. It means you didn't have a back-up plan,” said Ahmed on Sports Paktv.
Ahmed, who has represented Pakistan in 34 Tests and 70 ODIs between 1980 to 1993, also said, "Unless you're not settled, there's no point. There was Saud Shakeel, there were 2-3 other players, where are they now?”
The former Pakistani cricketer further went on to make a strong claim that Pakistan has nothing to do with Asia Cup as they only care about those 2-3 matches against India.
“We want our team to be good. We were thinking they will pick Shoaib Malik. Because you only remember these people at this time. But we don't really care about the Asia Cup, we only care about those 2-3 games against India. It's like.. 'if we win these, that's it'. That's not the way. You need planning,” Ahmed said.
Meanwhile, Asia Cup is set to be played from August 27 to September in UAE and a high-octane clash between the arch-rivals India and Pakistan will be played on August 28.
India's squad for Asia Cup: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan. Standby: Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Deepak Chahar.
Pakistan's squad for Asia Cup: Babar Azam (c), Shadab Khan, Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir.
