PAK vs SL: Mohammad Rizwan Tips Saud Shakeel To Be Pakistan's Next Superstar

Mohammad Rizwan has said Saud Shakeel could be the next batting superstar for Pakistan if he continues to work hard. The wicketkeeper-batsman’s comments came after Shakeel lighted up the World Cup with an impressive knock against the Netherlands on Friday (October 8).

The left-handed batsman walked out to bat in his first-ever World Cup game in a tough situation. Pakistan were reeling at 38 for 3 after a disastrous start and the onus was on Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan to rescue the team. The duo did not disappoint as both of them went on to score fifties and shared a crucial 120-run stand for the fourth wicket.

And while both the batsmen scored 68 runs each, it is Shakeel’s knock that has garnered all the attention. Playing just his seventh ODI, the middle-order batsman played positive cricket right from the word go and completed a 32-ball fifty to ease the pressure off himself and his side. He went on to score his 68 runs in just 52 balls while Mohammad Rizwan took 75 balls for scoring the same number of runs.

Mohammad Rizwan praises Saud Shakeel:

After the game, Mohammad Rizwan was all praise for Saud Shakeel and tipped him to be the next batting superstar of Pakistan. The Pakistan star revealed that he stopped talking about plans and strategies halfway through the partnership with Shakeel as he hailed him as a gifted cricketer.

“If Saud maintains the hard work he’s doing, then Pakistan will have found themselves another superstar,” Mohammad Rizwan said. “Because he’s a bit different in the way he’s gifted. While I plan or discuss batting with Babar Azam in a partnership, when I bat with Saud I tell him I’m not planning anything with him, because the way he plays his shots get him runs anyway.

“If he plays like he normally does, he’ll be fine and score quickly. But he has gifts that make him a different kind of superstar. We had said that we’d start to plan after 33 overs for the final stages of the innings. But then he got out a little short of 33 overs, and so did I,” he added.

Pakistan’s next game is against Sri Lanka. The match is scheduled to take place on October 10 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad.