'Naseem Shah had niggles while Shaheen Afridi...': Azhar Mahmood's colossal revelation on pacers' snub

Pakistan National Cricket Team assistant coach Azhar Mahmood has made a new revelation on the exclusion of premier pacers Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah from the Test squad for the England series.

Naseem Shah and Shaheen Afridi were two of the shocking names released from the Pakistan Test squad for the second and third Tests against England along with Babar Azam and Sarfaraz Ahmed.

Pakistan Include Just One Pacer In Playing XI For 2nd Test Against England

On Monday, the Pakistan Cricket Board announced the playing XI for the second Test and went with the combination of three spinners and one seam-bowling all-rounder in Aamer Jamal.

The spinners picked for the match in Multan are left-arm spinner Noman Ali, leg-spinner Zahid Mahmood and off-spinner Sajid Khan.

Unless part-timers get the opportunity to bowl, it will be the second time ever that the Pakistan National Cricket Team will be playing a Test match with only one seamer in the line-up. The last time it happened was in the 1980 Karachi Test between Pakistan and West Indies when Imran Khan was the only pacer in the team.

Also, the superstar batsman Babar Azam has been replaced by Kamran Ghulam and the 29-year-old is all set to make his Test debut and play at No.4.

We knew we'd have to rest Shaheen and other important players because...: Azhar Mahmood

Speaking to reporters ahead of the second Test, Azhar Mahmood revealed why they have adopted a spin strategy for the upcoming match. He also revealed that Naseem Shah was struggling with some niggles while Shaheen Afridi was overworked, and it was important to manage his workload.

“This was the 3rd Test match since this new management took over. Even before that, we were struggling to pick up 20 wickets. We thought now that we had more spin options, so we went with this strategy. Naseem had some niggles while Shaheen has been playing a lot of cricket, so we decided to rest them," Azhar Mahmood said.

"We need to take advantage of our conditions. We announced the team for one Test match because we knew we would have changes. After this, we're flying to Australia to play white-ball cricket. We knew we'd have to rest Shaheen and other important players because we have non-stop cricket for the next six months," Azhar Mahmood added.

We had a clear plan of what pitches to prepare for Bangladesh, and what to prepare vs England - Azhar Mahmood

Azhar Mahmood also revealed the plans of Pakistan for the kind of pitches they wanted for the home Test series. The Pakistan assistant coach said that they wanted pace-friendly tracks for the series against Bangladesh and spin-friendly pitches for the matches against the Three Lions. Azhar Mahmood said:

"We had a clear plan of what pitches to prepare for Bangladesh, and what to prepare vs England.

"Our approach was pace wickets against Bangladesh and spin pitches against England. Our instruction to the curator for the first Test was that the ball should spin after the second day. But the pitch didn't take turn until even the fifth day. Hopefully the ball will begin to take turn on the ninth day."

Azhar Mahmood further stated that the youngsters in the Pakistan squad won't be under pressure as they have played plenty of matches in first-class cricket.

"I don't think our youngsters would be under any pressure. All of them have been playing first-class cricket for a while except Mehran. And I feel youngsters should start their career at home in favourable conditions," Azhar Mahmood stated.

Also Read: Shaheen Afridi dropped from Pakistan Test team because of father-in-law Shahid Afridi