Asia Cup 2022: ‘Ye rona dhona toh bohot puraana hai’: Ex-Pakistan cricketer slams PCB for ‘unsettled’ Squad – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Former Pakistan cricketer Tauseef Ahmed has lashed out at Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for failing to settle the team ahead of the upcoming Asia Cup in Dubai and added that the management only care about 2-3 games against arch-rivals India rather than focusing on the whole tournament.

“Ye rona dhona toh bohot puraana hai (this has been going on for long now). You didn’t try to settle the team. The same players that were there a few years ago are coming back in some way or the other. When something this crucial is coming up, you go back to those players about whom you once said that they should leave cricket. It means you didn’t have a backup plan,” Ahmed told to Sports Paktv.

Ahmed said that Shoaib Malik was expected to be a part of the team, but he is nowhere. Also a few other players around the international circuit in past few years were missing.

“Unless you’re not settled, there’s no point. There was Saud Shakeel, there were 2-3 other players, where are they now?

“We want our team to be good. We were thinking they will pick Shoaib Malik. Because you only remember these people at such time. But we don’t really care about the Asia Cup, we only care about those 2-3 games against India. It’s like.. ‘if we win these, that’s it.’ That’s not the way. You need planning,” he further added.

Asia Cup 2022, which is scheduled to take place in Dubai and Sharjah from 27 August to 11 September, will feature six teams divided into two groups. India, Pakistan, and a qualifier team are in Group A while Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan form Group B. Each team plays within the group once.

Pakistan had announced their squad for the Asia Cup, earlier on 3 August.

Notably, Pakistan will open their Asia Cup campaign against arch-rivals India on 28 August. The Men in Blue will eye for revenge against the Babar Azam-led side for the defeat in the T20 World Cup 2021 and will also aim to defend their title as India defeated Bangladesh in the final of the previous edition of the tournament in 2018.

Pakistan squad for ACC T20 Asia Cup: Babar Azam (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Afridi, Shahnawaz Dahani and Usman Qadir.

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