The curious case of Hafeez’s exclusion from T20I squad

Fawad Alam is back in Test contention for Pakistan and he is piling up runs to prove that keeping him out was a grave mistake committed by many over the last decade. His return could have meant that the Pakistan Cricket Board must’ve learned their lesson that bringing in and kicking out players on the basis of likes and dislikes was the wrong way to go.

However, within a couple of months, the PCB has once again shown that they are less about merit and more about teaching players a lesson for questioning the status quo.

Pakistan’s squad against South Africa for the upcoming three-match T20I series was announced on Sunday. While many domestic performers would be happy to see their names in the list, everyone was wondering why the list didn’t include all-rounder Mohammad Hafeez.

Now, the new chief selector Muhammad Wasim, unlike many before him didn’t use the excuse of age or bad form or someone better is in the squad or it is not the right time and place, but he did indeed use an excuse to not name Hafeez.

According to Wasim, Hafeez is playing the T10 league and won’t be able to return to Pakistan and join the bio-secure bubble on time. That leaves us with one question, has Hafeez really preferred T10 money over country?

Let us look at Hafeez’s statement which he gave on January 20. “I’m fully available for the T20I series [against South Africa] as my priority is always playing for Pakistan. I was also given NOC for T10 League because it would not clash with Pakistan’s international commitments. I will also comply with all the bio-secure bubble requirements.”

Does the statement imply anywhere that he prefers T10 over Pakistan? No.

What does it imply then? For that we’ll have to look at the meeting between PCB officials and some players with the Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan, and the latter is also supposed to be the supreme head of the PCB.

Rumour has it that Hafeez and other senior players put forward a case in front of PM Imran for the struggling domestic players, which the PCB didn’t like. There were also reports that the players didn’t discuss the proposal with the PCB before presenting it before the PM.

For more context on money versus playing for country, cricketpakistan.com.pk had reported that Hafeez gave up lucrative stints in Lanka Premier League and Caribbean Premier League to represent Pakistan, even after not being offered a central contract. While Hafeez could’ve made millions from the T20 leagues, he preferred to play for Pakistan for peanuts.

To make things more clear, on the question of why Hafeez should’ve been in the T20I squad. Let us look at his performances in 2020.

Hafeez has four fifties to his name in the past year. The first he scored against Bangladesh in Lahore (67 not out), the second he scored against England in England (69 not out), the third came against England again in the very next T20 (an unbeaten 89), and the last one was a score of 99 not out against New Zealand recently.

Apart from the fifties, he has been scoring with the average of at least 35 plus in T20Is in the past couple of years and there are no prizes for guessing that he has been the best with the willow for Pakistan after Babar.

If Hafeez’s statement is considered as his word that he prefers Pakistan over anything else and if Wasim was actually considering selecting him for the T20I against South Africa, then the chief selector should have told the all-rounder to come back and quarantine in time. So, either Wasim didn’t want him there or someone else didn’t.

Anyways, truth has the tendency to come out some day, sooner will be better, but later will still hurt PCB’s reputation as much.