Salman Ali Agha was appointed as Pakistan’s new T20I captain and has vowed a new strategy in the shortest format. Pakistan’s new T20 captain Salman Ali Agha on Tuesday vowed a new strategy in the shortest format, assuring that his team will play aggressive cricket as it gears up for the coming tournaments.
Agha, appointed Pakistan captain for the five-match T20I tour of New Zealand starting March 16 on Tuesday, said the selectors have chosen a new-look team as there was a need to play aggressive cricket. “I am privileged to be Pakistan captain but it is also a challenge for me. We have primarily selected youngsters in the T20 team.”. My job is to encourage players to play bold and high-risk cricket,” he explained following his appointment.
We will certainly have failures but we all have to stand by these players. They would be instructed to play freely. In the T20 format, there is no other choice now than playing fearless cricket.” He added that there was a requirement to play with a different mindset in T20s and the chosen players will be given assurance that they will not be left out even if they have some failures.
Having Shadab Khan as vice-captain will also be good because he and I think in the same aggressive mindset and we will both try to groom attacking players.” Agha also justified the inclusion of Shadab in the T20 squad, stating Pakistan lacked quality all-rounders in Test and white-ball cricket.
“Shadab has the experience and these days you require players who can also bat with their wrist spin.” Interim head coach Aaqib Javed clarified that although Babar Azam and Muhammad Rizwan were dropped from the T20 team, they are not ruled out for future tasks.
“We are currently attempting to concentrate on a pool of 24-25 players targeting the Asia Cup and World Cup and we will not solely rely on the 15-16 chosen for this tour.” The Asia Cup will take place later in the year and the T20 World Cup will be hosted in 2026.
