Captain of Islamabad United, Shadab Khan highlighted the problems he had to face while finalizing the squad for the upcoming Pakistan Super League (PSL) season. The ninth edition of the PSL will kickstart tomorrow.
Shadab shed light on the acquisition of speedster Naseem Shah and allrounder Imad Wasim in Islamabad’s bowling attack and the inclusion of Ubaid Shah and Hunain Shah in the emerging category.
The Pakistan allrounder also discussed why he had to let go of his best friend and pivotal cog in United’s team Hasan Ali in the draft picks. The speedster has now switched his allegiance to 2020 PSL champions Karachi Kings.
He emphasized that the inclusion of Imad Wasim will provide balance in the team. If both the spin allrounders play together in the playing XI, it will provide batting depth and extra bowling options as well, Shadab said.
Shadab Khan also revealed that Naseem Shah did not want his brothers to be included as it could ignite a debate about nepotism and put extra pressure on him. However the captain assured that both Hunain and Ubaid Shah are talented players in the emerging category stating that,
If your emerging players are good, your team’s combination becomes very strong. Hunain has been performing consistently for the past two seasons. And we weren’t sure if Ubaid would last till our turn, but we got him.
Recently Ubaid Shah set the stage alight in the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup where he took 18 wickets in Pakistan’s journey to the semifinals where they suffered a heartbreaking loss against Australia by 1 wicket.
In response to the question on Naseem Shah’s return from injury, Shadab stated, “Hopefully, we’re hoping that from day one, we’ll have the same Naseem again, but we’ll also give him a fair amount of time because I know as a player it takes some time to regain form”.
The Islamabad United skipper also shared his views on the dilemma he had to face to let his strike bowler Hassan Ali go due to limited slots,
We got stuck category-wise because five players in our diamond category were such that we didn’t want them to go anywhere. But someone had to go.
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