Picture Credit: Twitter
19- year-old Pakistan pacer Naseem Shah made his T20I debut against India on Sunday and garnered a lot of praise for his incredible bowling spell in the match. Naseem picked up two wickets for 27 runs in his four overs to keep Pakistan in the game. Although India registered a five-wicket victory, Naseem Shah's power-packed performance on debut gave them a positive boost to push through into the tournament.
However, Naseem is facing a new controversy as he is currently under criticism for his age as an old tweet by Pakistani journalist Saj Sadiq has surfaced. Saj had tweeted praising Naseem as a "17-year-old pace bowler" has resurfaced. In his tweet from 2018, Sadiq talks about a back injury the pacer suffered before the PSL 4 season. Sadiq called Naseem a 17-year-old in his tweet. Since then, four years have passed, but Naseem has only aged two years.
Check the tweet here:
Shockingly, Naseem turned a year younger two years after Saj Sadiq first tweeted about him as a 17-year-old. In 2020, Naseem became the youngest fast bowler to take a hat-trick in Test history as he achieved the record against Bangladesh in Rawalpindi. Naseem was then registered as a 16-year-old during the match.
He then also found himself in a similar controversy after making his Test debut against Australia in Brisbane. As the then 16-year-old, Sadiq’s tweet revealed that it wasn't so. But then the Pakistan Cricket Board CEO Wasim Khan revealed that the controversy rose up due to his mature personality and as he is representing his country at such a young age.
Khan said, "You only need to look at his face. He's hardly got any growth on his face. In terms of that, people question it no doubt, just because of his age and the fact that he's a mature lad and the fact he's playing international cricket at this age. But the bottom line is he's 16 years old and he's playing. We don't really care what India thinks."
