ISLAMABAD: In yet another setback to the green shirts, Pakistan announced on Wednesday that upper order batter Fakhar Zaman has aggravated his knee injury and hence will not be available for the South Africa clash on Thursday.
A knee injury seven weeks ago had forced Zaman to withdraw from the Asia Cup 2022 in the UAE. However, he was included in the 15-man T20 World Cup squad, replacing leg spinner Abdul Qadir at the last minute.
The left-handed batter missed Pakistan’s opening matches against India and Zimbabwe for this year’s World Cup. He finally played against the Netherlands on Sunday, scoring 20 runs from 16 balls.
Pakistan, with only two points from the tournament so far, need to win Thursday’s match against the Proteas to even stand a chance of qualifying for the next stage of the T20 World Cup.
Pakistan team doctor, Najeebullah Soomro, told reporters that every knee injury takes time to recover from fully. “Fakhar and the team understood the risks of coming into the tournament and we got him in,” he said.
“You saw how he performed with batting in the last match, unfortunately in the last match he had a bit of a twist which aggravated his injury,” Soomro added.
He said the team management was confident Zaman was completely fit “from a medical point of view.”
“In my view, the medical team, the specialists involved, have all worked really hard with him, day and night, and from a medical point of view we are confident he’s back in full flow,” he added.
Pakistan, who are almost certainly disqualified from the tournament, will need to win their remaining two matches against Bangladesh and South Africa. The green shirts will also need a couple of results to go their way to ensure they qualify for the semifinal stage of the tournament.
Known for his aggressive style of batting, Zaman is particularly useful for Pakistan in cricket’s shortest format. Cricket analysts have often cited Zaman as a solution for Pakistan’s slow run rate in T20 formats.
Pacer Naseem Shah, who spoke after Soomro, said the team feels bad but there isn’t much anyone can do about it.
“We are trying to focus on the next games and win those because you cannot do anything about the past games,” he told the media.
