Mohammad Rizwan will start in place of veteran wicketkeeper Sarfaraz Ahmed in Pakistan’s 12-man squad for their Boxing Day match against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the country confirmed on Monday. Because of the ordeal he had in the Peth Test, Sarfaraz has been left from the Test team. He only managed seven runs in each of the two innings, and Mitchell Starc was giving him a lot of problems.
“I don’t believe the game’s outcome would have been altered by that one adjustment. The rationale behind selecting Sarfaraz was essentially the same as the rationale behind selecting Aamer Jamal and Khurram Shahzad. People like to focus on statistics, and Rizwan has excellent SENA averages. First off, there isn’t any rivalry between the two. They play a similar role in the team. Any rivalry they have is constructive rivalry. We are aware of Rizwan’s past actions, but Sarfaraz was given the advantage because, during his previous trip here in 2016, he averaged 56.50. Yes, it has been a while, but in the recent few years, he has also often played red-ball in the Quaid-e-Azam trophy, Masood said, citing ESPNcricinfo.
“Rizwan just returned after playing a ton of white-ball cricket at the World Cup. In red-ball cricket, too, he had a void after Sarfaraz replaced him for the New Zealand series. Rizwan hadn’t played much red-ball cricket, and Sarfaraz had put on an incredible show there. So there was a process involved. He has played red-ball cricket there. We were able to get a guy like Rizwan in condition because Karachi had a great season and was named the tournament’s MVP. Though it’s not feasible, I would want for both to play if I had my wish. The Pakistani team for the second Test is as follows: Imam-Ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique, Shan Masood (c), Babar Azam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Salman Ali Agha, Shaheen Afridi, Hasan Ali, Mir Hamza, Aamir Jamal, and Sajid Khan. “We think Rizwan is ready now, and we can give Saifi that little bit of break to recover and come back,” Masood said of the Pakistani team.
