Pakistan Announce 35-Member Squad For New Zealand Tour; No place for Asad Shafiq, Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Amir

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced the new captain of the Test team on Tuesday and has now announced the team for the tour of New Zealand on Wednesday. With around only five weeks to go, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced the tourists’ squad of 35 members to travel New Zealand.

According to the ICC, the PCB has included 6 openers, 11 middle-order batsmen, 3 wicketkeepers, 5 spinners and 10 fast bowlers in this 35-man squad. Earlier, the Pakistan Cricket Board had taken the captaincy of the Test team from Azhar Ali and appointed Babar Azam as the captain of the Test team. Babar Azam was earlier captain of T20 and ODI team, but now he will lead Pakistan’s team in all three formats.

Pakistan team captain Babar Azam will feature in all the three T20 and two Test matches series, while Shadab Khan has been selected by the Pakistan Cricket Board as the vice-captain of the T20 team. At the same time, Mohammad Rizwan is selected as the vice-captain for the Test team. However the veteran middle-order batsman Asad Shafiq has not been selected in the squad as he didn’t have a great time in England. He has been dropped from Pakistan’s Test side for the first time in his 10-year career.

Shafiq has not been in a great form since a long time and the head coach and chief selector Misbah-ul-Haq gave the same reason for not including him in the squad. He also wished that Shafiq will work hard by playing domestic cricket and make a comeback to the team.

“Asad Shafiq has been left out due to lack of form after he managed 510 runs in his last 15 innings, including a total of 67 runs in England. Asad is an experienced batsman and I am sure he will utilise this time to work harder on his game in the domestic first-class matches so that he, like Sarfaraz Ahmed, can reclaim his form and be back in contention for the upcoming Tests against South Africa and Zimbabwe,” Misbah said according to Cricket Pakistan.

Moreover, Mohammad Amir and Shoaib Malik, who are regular faces in the T20Is
are also not selected in the squad. Both these players were ‘rested’ for the recently concluded Zimbabwe series too.

The first T20 match between Pakistan and New Zealand will be held in Auckland on December 18, the second T20 will be played in Hamilton on December 20 and the third match will be played in Napier on December 22.

Talking about Test series, the first match will be played from December 26 to 30 in Mount Maunganui, while the second Test will be played in Christchurch from January 3 to 7.

Here’s Pakistan’s Squad For New Zealand Tour

Abid Ali, Abdullah Shafique, Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Shan Masood, Zeeshan Malik, Babar Azam (C), Azhar Ali, Danish Aziz, Fawad Alam, Haider Ali, Haris Sohail, Hussain Talat, Imran Butt, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Rizwan (Test VC), Rohail Nazir, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan (T20I VC), Usman Qadir, Yasir Shah, Zafar Gohar, Amad Butt, Faheem Ashraf, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Musa, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Afridi, Sohail Khan