ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s opening batter Muhammad Rizwan on Tuesday said the national squad has “full trust’ in its middle order, after Pakistan’s loss to England in the first T20 international between the two sides in Karachi.
‘Middle order’ is a term mostly used to refer to batters who bat at the number 4-7 positions in the team. Pakistan’s opening pair, comprising skipper Babar Azam and Rizwan, have been consistently scoring in T20 internationals over the past year, enabling the side to often chase targets successfully.
However, the team’s middle order has often come under fire for its lacklustre performances over the past couple of months. Pakistan’s middle order batters comprising Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Asif Ali and even Fakhar Zaman, who bats at the number three position, failed to impress at the recently concluded Asia Cup 2022.
“As a team, we have full trust in them [middle order],” Rizwan said at the post-match press conference. “We know that, God willing, whenever we need them, they will do it [put up impressive performances.]”
Rizwan said he and skipper Azam— as the opening pair— had been performing consistently over the past year, due to which the middle order did not get a proper chance to show off their batting prowess.
The batter said Pakistan was also making some changes to their team combination ahead of the T20 World Cup next month.
“We are in the process of seeing which combination can work,” he said. “Obviously, we will make mistakes because we had a combination and now we are thinking about another one and then also, experimenting,” Rizwan added.
He conceded Pakistan encountered difficulties in maintaining an aggressive run rate during the past couple of matches but added that conditions in Dubai were difficult for other teams to score as well.
“It is there for all to see, if we consider the conditions in Dubai during the Asia Cup, that it was really difficult [for Pakistan to bat aggressively],” he said. “But this wasn’t just restricted to Pakistan, if you consider big players from other teams, things were quite difficult for them too,” he added.
England won the first of the seven-match T20 series against Pakistan on Tuesday by six wickets and four balls to spare. Ali, Shan Masood, Ahmed and Mohammad Nawaz in the middle order ended up with scores of 11, 7, 28 and 4 respectively.