ISLAMABAD: Pakistani fast bowler Mohammad Amir said this week he has set his sights on the upcoming T20 World Cup 2024, as he gears up to mark his return to international cricket after a nearly four-year hiatus. 

The 32-year-old pacer played his first match on Thursday against New Zealand in Rawalpindi but did not bowl a single delivery as rain suspended play during the first over of the match. 

Amir, one of Pakistan’s most prolific fast bowlers, retired in December 2020 after being dropped from the side. He changed his mind last month and decided to restart his career, which had also been stalled by a spot-fixing ban in 2010.

“The way the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) management brought me back, it is for a short-term goal, the [T20] World Cup,” Amir told PCB Digital in an interview on Friday. “And that is the biggest goal.”

The left-arm pacer pointed out that Pakistan had played in the semifinal of the T20 World Cup 2021 and competed in the final of the T20 World Cup in 2022. However, it had failed to “cross the line” and become world champions on both occasions. 

“If that happens [Pakistan win the World Cup] it would be a huge achievement for me, to be a part of that team,” he said. 

Amir said he feels he is much fitter compared to 2019 when he last represented Pakistan in a World Cup tournament.

“See, you cannot express yourself properly in the ground until you’re fit,” he said. “So I feel the way my body feels fresh right now, I can chip in more and prove beneficial to the team via my performance.”

The pacer credited his wife and children for helping him stay positive. 

“She makes sure that all my focus is on cricket,” he said. “I think that always gives me energy and helps me to face whatever I have to.”

Pakistan face New Zealand in the second T20 fixture of the five-match series in Rawalpindi today, Saturday. The two sides will lock horns in Rawalpindi on April 21 before meeting for the remaining two fixtures in Lahore on April 25 and 27. 

Teams:

Pakistan: Babar Azam (captain), Usman Khan, Abrar Ahmed, Iftikhar Ahmed, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Amir, Muhammad Irfan Khan, Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi

New Zealand: Michael Bracewell (captain), Mark Chapman, Josh Clarkson, Jacob Duffy, Dean Foxcroft, Ben Lister, Jimmy Neesham, Tim Robinson, Ben Sears, Tim Seifert, Ish Sodhi

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government is working on a new education policy to impart technical skills to one million youth annually to export trained human resource to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, an official said on Friday.

The cash-strapped South Asian nation of 241 million has been working on a holistic national education policy to cover technical training for the youth by enrolling over 2.5 million out-of-school children.

The Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), a federal body led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to attract investment from foreign and domestic sources, has given specific targets to the education ministry to finalize a comprehensive policy to improve the education sector.

“This new policy aims to impart vocational training to at least one million youth per annum to export skilled workforce to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries,” Rana Mujtaba, a spokesperson for the Pakistani ministry of education and professional training, told Arab News.

“It will be rolled out in May.”

There are around 9 million overseas Pakistanis living and working in different countries, including 2.8 million in Saudi Arabia, who remit around $30 billion back home annually to support the country’s fragile economy.

“Majority of our overseas workforce is unskilled labor. Therefore, the government is now focusing on enhancing vocational capacity of the youth,” Mujtaba said.

In the National Education Policy 2017-2025, Pakistan aimed to raise its literacy rate from the existing 60 percent to 90 percent by 2025, narrow down the gender gaps, reduce rural and urban imbalance, improve quality of education, promote technical and vocational education with skill development programs, and ensure good governance. But all this has yet to be achieved.

Mujtaba said Pakistan’s vocational training institutes already had a “strong affiliation” with Saudi Arabia, where all training certificates were accepted.

“The SIFC that is chaired by the PM has given a general direction to the ministry to work on a new education policy to improve the sector’s performance,” he said.

The spokesperson dispelled the notion that the education ministry was working on the new education policy without taking provincial governments on-board, since education has primarily been a provincial subject in the South Asian country.

“The federal government is in fact supporting the provinces in improving the education sector. All provincial ministers and education secretaries are on-board as the federal ministry has sought inputs from all of them,” he said.

“This will be a holistic policy that will also address the issue of out-of-school children, improving the higher education’s standards, domestic and foreign scholarships for the students.”

Educationists and public policy experts said the government had already devised numerous policies and produced documents to improve the education sector, but it would lack in implementation of these plans.

“The silver lining in the new policy is that the government is for the first time focusing on out-of-school children, but there needs to be an effective mechanism in place with clear timelines to address this issue,” Taimur Bandey, an educationist, told Arab News.

“The government needs to allocate its resources for teachers training and upgrade libraries and laboratories in the institutions to improve the education standards.”