Pakistan’s confident pace sensation Shaheen Shah Afridi will not play in the second Test match against Bangladesh, which will be played on Friday in Rawalpindi. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced the team for the decisive match on X, which was earlier known as Twitter, and surprisingly, Shaheen’s name was missing.
He is a left-arm bowler with a bowling style quite effective in the longer version of the game and is actually the lone left-arm pace bowler now in the Pak team, having a 24-year age, which makes him one of the most sought-after bowlers in the world.
Afridi played the first test match of the series for Pakistan, bowling both innings and taking 2 wickets in total. However, Pakistan lost the match by 10 wickets. Some fans have been shocked that he is not part of the second Test. After the squad was announced, Pakistan’s Test head coach, Jason Gillespie, held a press conference in Rawalpindi to explain the same.
This decision was made considering recent changes in Shaheen’s personal life, which started a new family last week with the birth of a baby boy. It will be one of the opportunities for him to spend more time with his family as well as work on the improvements of his results.
“He has experienced an interesting couple of weeks; as a new father, we regard it as a chance for him to be with his family and improve his bowling,” added Gillespie. He said that Shaheen has been working very closely with Azhar Mahmood to fine-tune his abilities, stressing that it was imperative to have him all primed for the series.
In Shaheen Afridi’s absence, Pakistan has added pace bowler Mir Hamza and off-break bowler Abrar Ahmed to the team. The difficult task of deciding who will play in the playing XI for this match is looming large.
