Babar Azam, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Rizwan unlikely to be picked in Pakistan squad for Bangladesh series after T20 World Cup debacle

After the dismal campaign in the ongoing T20 World Cup, Pakistan are likely to make a number of changes to their squad for the upcoming Test series against Bangladesh, a per a report in PTI.

The Men in Green had a disastrous campaign in the ninth edition of the T20 World Cup as they failed to progress ahead of the group stage. Even though the Babar Azam-led side was one of the strong contenders for the title, it just could not hit the top gear in the tournament. Pakistan, who were the runners-up in the last edition of the T20 World Cup, exited the ongoing edition at the group stage.

They began their campaign with a humiliating loss against the USA. It was followed by another embarrassing loss as they failed to chase down 120 runs against arch-rivals India. The 2009 T20 World Cup winners did manage to beat Canada and Ireland but it was too late to turn things around.

Pakistan to take on Bangladesh without senior members:

In the wake of the poor campaign in the T20 World Cup, a number of senior members of the Pakistan team are unlikely to feature in the upcoming series against Bangladesh. While the series is scheduled to take place in August and is more than a month away, reports state that the players will be rested.

The players who are likely to miss the series are T20I captain Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, and Shaheen Afridi. As of now, nothing has been finalized but the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is in touch with Test captain, Shan Masood and new red-ball head coach Jason Gillespie to chalk out the roadmap.

"One of the proposals being considered is giving rest to some senior players namely Babar, Shaheen, Rizwan etc and instead trying out those players who are uncapped or have just played a few internationals for Pakistan," a source said, as quoted by PTI.

"But, no final decision has been taken because in the end Masood and Gillespie will make the final call on the team selection, as in next few weeks the number of national selectors could also be reduced and the PCB might revert back to the old system of selection process," he added.

The source further stated that there are also question marks over Babar Azam's captaincy after the T20 World Cup debacle. Babar was reinstated as the captain in April this year but there have been calls from several quarters to sack him.

"The next few weeks in Pakistan cricket will be very important and interesting because it appears that the PCB is also waiting for Babar Azam to take a call on captaincy himself before they can discuss the future white-ball captain," he said.