Shahid Afridi
Shahid Afridi. Image Credits: Twitter

Former Pakistan National Cricket Team all-rounder Shahid Afridi, while talking about Pakistan National Cricket Team’s squad selection debate, said that the biggest problem is that politics have come into everything in Pakistan.

Pakistan National Cricket Team recently lost the second Test match of the two-match Test series against the Sri Lanka National Cricket Team by 246 runs. The Babar Azam-led side had won the first Test match by 4 wickets and the Test series ended in a 1-1 draw in Galle.

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The Pakistan batting unit faced heavy criticism after the defeat in the second Test match as only Babar Azam and Agha Salman were the batters, who scored a half-century in an innings of the match.

Mohammad Rizwan [Image-Twitter]
Mohammad Rizwan [Image-Twitter]
Star wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan, who has not been able to score big runs for Pakistan since his century in the second Test against Australia, amassed 24 and 37 runs in the 2nd Test match against Sri Lanka. Notably, former Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed was a part of the squad for the two-match Test series against Sri Lanka, but he was not considered for selection.

Rizwan hasn’t been performing – Shahid Afridi

Shahid Afridi
Shahid Afridi (Image Credit: Twitter)

Former Pakistan captain Afridi said that Rizwan has not been able to perform well in recent times and a certain amount of pressure needs to be kept on him so that he can be more careful about his performance. He added that Sarfaraz could have been given an opportunity to play on the Sri Lanka tour.

“You have to keep pressure. The more stronger the bench is, the more careful the player will be about his performance. Rizwan hasn’t been performing, and I believe that on tours like this, Sarfaraz could have been given an opportunity,” Afridi said on Samaa TV.

Meanwhile, the anchor of the TV debate talked about how people bring in arguments over city biases as a reason for a player to be considered for selection. Talking about this, Shahid Afridi said that “biases about cities is going for a long time” and it’s time to stop now.

“The biggest problem is that politics has come into everything here,” Afridi said, before explaining how in Pakistan, people bring in politics even during a crisis like floods.

“The biases about cities is going for a long time now. Someone will say, ‘this guy is from Karachi, or this guy is from Lahore’ (while talking about selection in the team). I don’t think these things should happen. Insaan ke bacche ban jaaye toh behetar hai (behave like a human being),” Afridi further said.

Shahid Afridi
Shahid Afridi. Image-Twitter

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Sonanchal Gautam is the Assistant Content Manager at Cricketaddictor. He is a professional Wrestling and Hip-hop enthusiast.