Web desk: Asia Cup must be the last assignment for Agha Salman both as a captain and a batter. Under his captaincy, the Pakistani T20I team continues to sink to new lows. He hasn’t won against any major team, and it will keep getting worse.
Sunday’s match against India proved that Agha Salman is a clueless captain. He made several reckless decisions, and the Pakistani management must realise that they are betting on the wrong horse.
Under his leadership, the Pakistani team is going nowhere.
Against India on Sunday, Pakistan were well placed at 91 for 1 in 10 overs. With wickets in hand and pressure firmly on India, Pakistan looked all set to cross the 200-run barrier.
After Saim fell in the 11th over, Coach Hesson and Salman made the first blunder. They promoted the newly added Hussain Talat to the 4th position.
Hussain Talat had come into the team, replacing Hassan Nawaz. He was not a like-for-like replacement for Nawaz since his strike rate is 116 compared to Nawaz’s 158.
How can you replace the batsmen with the highest strike rate with one who cannot even play big shots? If Talat could have replaced anyone in the batting lineup, it should have been Agha Salman.
But since Salman is the captain, he sacrificed Nawaz, not himself.
That was just the beginning of poor decision-making. When Talat got out, scoring 10 of 11 balls and sucking out all momentum from the innings, Salman promoted Muhammad Nawaz to number 5.
He should have let Faheem, Haris, or even Shaheen bat at 5, since Pakistan were looking for quick runs. Nawaz ended up wasting 19 balls and scoring only 21 runs.
In the 16th over, he played 4 straight dot balls, defending Varun’s balls with a straight ball as if he were playing a test match.
And then came the worst decision of the match, when the captain, Salman, promoted himself above all pinch hitters.
He could only score 17 runs off 13 balls, and the most shocking moment of the match came when he left two balls of the spinner Kuldeep in the 17th over of the innings.
When it was time to hit boundaries, the captain decided to pose for the camera, leaving two crucial deliveries as if he too were playing a test match.
Due to these baffling changes in the batting order, Pakistan could only score 38 runs in 7 overs from the 11th to the 17th.
This is where they had lost the match. When Faheem finally got the opportunity, he played at a strike rate of 250, scoring 20 runs off 8 balls.
If he had faced more balls and if Shaheen, the batting hero from the last two matches, had gotten an opportunity, Pakistan could have easily scored 200+. But they ended up with a total of 171 runs, which India chased down with ease in the 19th over.
Salman’s poor captaincy was on full display in the 2nd innings as well. He didn’t give his ace spinner Muhammad Nawaz a single over and let the part-time bowler Saim Ayub bowl 3.
He also brought Haris Rauf to bowl in the 6th over when India had already scored 55 runs. He should have been brought in earlier because he was their wicket-taker.
Agha Salman had become the captain after the PCB had decided to perform surgery on the team, removing the malfunctioning part.
What they have ended up doing is removing the functioning organs of the team, Rizwan and Babar, and installing the biggest malfunctioning organ, Agha Salman, as the team’s brain, who isn’t even fit to play T20 cricket, let alone captain it.
Salman has failed as a batter and has looked clueless as captain. This Asia Cup must be his last as both batsman and captain if Pakistan cricket is to move forward.
They must have their sights set on the 2026 T20I World Cup, and they need to bring in a new leader who is not a burden on the team itself.
Read more: PCB lodges complaint with ICC over Fakhar Zaman’s controversial dismissal
