Courtesy: X
Shaheen Afridi , Pakistan’s left-arm pacer has been left out of the playing XI for the second Test against Bangladesh, which will start on Friday, August 30. Since his knee injury in 2022, Shaheen Afridi has been struggling for form in red-ball format, playing four Tests and averaging 39.78 with 14 wickets last year before a poor performance in the recently concluded first Test.
This year, Shaheen Afridi has played only one Test for Pakistan, i.e the first match of the series against Bangladesh last week. He managed two wickets for 96 runs and his pace dropped to below 130 on occasions. Recently, the former Pakistan U19 player became a father for the first- time. The 24-year-old took some time off to meet his family before the upcoming second Test but joined the team soon after.
With only a day left before the second Test, Pakistan's head coach Jason Gillespie has announced that Shaheen Afridi won’t be playing this game. However, the 2003 World Cup winner didn’t name Shaheen Afridi’s replacement in the playing XI.
"Shaheen's missed out this game. We've had a good conversation with him, and he fully understands and appreciates the thinking behind it. Shaheen's been given some feedback. He's working on some things with his bowling to be as effective as he possibly can be. He's working really well with Azhar Mahmood. We want to see Shaheen at his best because we've got a lot of cricket in all formats and Shaheen's going to play a really big role in that," said Jason Gillespie in the press conference.
Jason Gillespie didn’t give any indications on Pakistan's eventual combination
The former Australia pacer was asked about the playing XI. He didn’t give any indications but mentioned that they are yet to have a look at the wicket.
"We're looking at what our best combination is this game," Jason Gillespie said. "We'll look at conditions and decide what the best makeup of our bowling attack looks like. We haven't been able to look at the surface much because of the weather, so we wanted to name 12. We want to be as informed as we possibly can before we select the side we think is best capable of taking 20 wickets," he added.
Abrar Ahmed, Kamran Ghulam, and Ameer Jamal have been included in the team ahead of the second and last Test. Ahmed and Ghulam were playing for Pakistan Shaheens against Bangladesh A recently. On the other hand, Jamal was ruled out of the first match due to injury.
