Pakistan A in England: Future national players unearthed in tour, claims Basit

Head coach names Shakil, Jaahid among others, praises skipper Azam

KARACHI: Former Test player Basit Ali, who was the head coach of the Pakistan A team on its recent tour of England, has termed their series against Sri Lanka A and England Lions a successful one, stating that Pakistan has found at least four to five players who could be of use to the national team in the near future.

Basit’s appointment for the tour was a result of his unmatched record in Pakistan’s domestic cricket as coach in the last several years, winning four consecutive first-class titles with SNGPL without star players such as Misbahul Haq, Mohammad Hafeez, Azhar Ali, Umar Akmal and Yasir Shah at times.

The unofficial Test series with Sri Lanka A was drawn 1-1 while in the tri-nation series, Pakistan A won both matches against Sri Lanka A and lost two against England Lions.

According to Basit, the tour was fruitful in terms of player development.

“I can say that the likes of Saud Shakil, Hasan Ali, Jaahid Ali, Shadab Khan and Mir Hamza have been unearthed on this A tour,” Basit told The Express Tribune. “They had been performing well at different levels in domestic cricket, but it was a different challenge to perform in England and I’m really happy with them. I’m pretty optimistic that out of these players, we’ll see some of them with the national team very soon.”

Basit also had words of encouragement for skipper Babar Azam and Sharjeel Khan — both of whom are already international players — stating that they fulfilled the expectations from them.

In the unofficial Test series against Sri Lanka A, Azam top-scored for the side with 159 runs in  two matches, while Mohammad Nawaz accumulated 138 runs in the same number of matches besides picking up seven wickets. The standout performance came from Shakil, who scored 137 in just one match at an average of 137.00, followed by Mohammad Hasan (100) and Jaahid (96).

All-rounder Hasan was the best bowler in the unofficial Test series with 11 wickets, while he scored 80 runs as well. Azizullah and Mir Hamza claimed eight and seven wickets respectively.

In the ODI tri-series, Pakistan’s top-scorer was Sharjeel, who plundered 253 runs in four matches with the help of a century and a fifty. Jaahid amassed 180 runs in just two matches at an average of 90.00 as he too scored a century and a half-century.

Bilawal Bhatti was the highest wicket-taker for Pakistan with seven wickets while Nawaz and Hasan got five wickets each.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2016.

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