Pakistan has announced its squad for the Test match series against Australia starting on 14 December 2023 in Perth. This three-match test series will continue until 7 January 2024 if the 3rd match continues till the final day of the Test. This article will tell you everything about the test match series. And, of course, the squad as well. So continue reading if you want in on all the drama!
Read: Australia vs Pakistan
Squad
Let’s look at the squad before discussing everything in detail. There have been a lot of changes in the team management and coaching staff. That will affect this series to some extent as well.
| Player Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Shan Masood (capt) | Batsman |
| Aamer Jamal | Allrounder |
| Abdullah Shafique | Batsman |
| Abrar Ahmed | Spinner |
| Babar Azam | Batsman |
| Faheem Ashraf | Bowling allrounder |
| Hasan Ali | Fast bowler |
| Imam ul Haq | Batsman |
| Khurram Shahzad | Fast bowler |
| Mir Hamza | Fast bowler |
| Mohammad Rizwan | Wicketkeeper Batsman |
| Mohammad Wasim Jnr | Bowling allrounder |
| Nauman Ali | Left-arm orthodox spinner |
| Saim Ayub | Batsman |
| Salman Agha | Batting allrounder |
| Sarfaraz Ahmed | Wicketkeeper Batsman |
| Saud Shakeel | Batsman |
| Shaheen Afridi | Fast bowler |
Schedule
This is the schedule for the games. So, anyone who wants to follow these games, you can set your schedules now.
| Test Venue | Test Dates |
|---|---|
| Perth | December 14-18 2023 |
| Melbourne | December 26-30 2023 |
| Sydney | January 3-7 2024 |
Background on this tour
Pakistan’s tour to Australia is a mixture of everything. An impending doom for Pakistan cricket? Is it a walk in the park for the Australian team? Yeah, these things can be the things to look forward to. However, there is one thing you will find abundant.
And that is a drama after Pakistan’s loss in the Asia Cup and the World Cup has every cricket fan in anger; they want answers. Players were mismanaged, and many got injured or couldn’t perform well. There was a huge controversy regarding Babar’s captaincy. Pakistan is walking into this tournament with all of this drama. While Australia will be in the test series, waiting to walk over this mess.
Selection process
There was some level of controversy regarding the chief selector too. Inzamam-ul-Haq resigned after the conflict of interest issues. After this, you expected PCB to do better. But did they? They made Wabah Riaz, the interim sports minister, and a PSL player, the chief selector for this series.
However, if you look past this drama, there are some good decisions that were made.
Key players
On the fast pitches of Australia, anyone bowling slower than 140KPH is going to get punished. And that is what the great Wasim Akram has always claimed in his analysis. Hence, this makes Shaheen Shah Afridi one of the most key players you have in this tour.
Of course, not having Naseem is going to hurt Pakistan. But they will make things better with players like Babar Azam, Saud Shakeel, and Mohammad Rizwan. The batting order looks good if they can survive the bouncing fast pitches in the Australian continent.
New names
Saim Ayub, Khurram Shahazad, the new names that everyone will look forward to. Khurram was the top wicket taker, while Saim was the talent that had everyone in awe during the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, Pakistan’s first class tournament.
Mir Hamza has been recalled as weel owning to his performance in the FC tournament. While you will see Abrar Ahmad looking forward to taking a lot of wickets and showing the management that they made a mistake by not including him in the WC squad.
Surprise exclusions
Haris Rauf was a surprise exclusion. Or rather he had made himself unavailable for the tour. Wahab Riaz has recently done a presser where he threw Haris under the buss, stating that this will hurt Pakistan cricket.
However, this seems illogical from Wahab since Haris Rauf wasn’t a great test bowler to begin with. What really surprises us is the exclusion of Mohammad Abbas, who has been bamboozling the batters in County cricket.
Captain
There have been a lot of changes in the coaching staff as well. However, let’s focus on the captain for now. After the humiliating losses in the CWC 2023, Babar’s captaincy was under scrutiny. His ability as a batter was getting affected due to the poor captaincy decisions. That is why, the management has decided to make Shan Masood the captain for this tour. Whether this will turn out to be a good decision, only time will tell
Conclusion
Best of luck for the Pakistan cricket team for this tour. They are going in the matches with tough luck. Their premier fast bowler is recovering, while Naseem is absent. Babar is struggling, and the Australian team is as good as ever. They will need all the good luck in this series that they can.