National captain of Pakistan’s T20 team, Salman Ali Agha, showed his interest to become an “all-format player”, explaining his role at Islamabad united and he successfully recreated his position in T20 cricket.
Salman Ali Agha replied barrenly when he was asked that his only natural format is T20 cricket, while playing for Islamabad United in PSL 2025.
“This is just something that people say,” he said. “I can’t influence that. I feel I can play all three formats and not focus on what people say.”
He gave his best performance as a batter in the opening match of PSL, while making 41 at 34 balls. During last year’s PSL, Salman was selected by Islamabad United in the silver category because his T20 data was satisfactory.
He played 63 T20 matches while keeping an average strike rate under 112, before he joined United in PSL 2024. He remained unselected during the previous two seasons of PSL. His last T20 game was played in September 2022.
While playing at No. 3, he recreated his position in T20 cricket. He made 64 at 31 balls, giving a brilliant performance in his first match for Islamabad United. Last year, he finished PSL as United’s second-highest run maker, by scoring 310 at 140.27 He ended up by winning the PSL trophy.
“The two to three seasons I didn’t play in the PSL taught me a lot,” Salman told ESPNcricinfo. “I watched it on TV and picked up a few things. I knew if I got another opportunity, I would know what to work on and what to improve.”
“The first thing was game awareness. Sometimes in T20 cricket, you think you have very little time, but you have a lot more time than you think. If you take the game deep, there’s lots of time. I used to rush and force things. But now I’ve realised that if I’m chasing, there’s enough time. Even if the asking rate is ten, I’m calculating how to do it and what approach to take rather than trying to hit every ball.”
Islamabad United is famous for chasing targets quickly. In PSL 2021, they chased the target of 130 in only ten overs, which was the largest margin of win in the tournament’s history. During 2018, they reached the final match after clearing the qualifying round by chasing a target of 155 in 12.3 overs.
If Salman’s performance as a T20 captain proves sustainable, then he might get a chance of becoming ODI captain. He usually plays at No. 7 in Test cricket, but he has a good strike rate only second to Shan Masood.
“I’ve worked on my game a lot. I knew if I wanted to become a three-format player, what work I needed to put in, and what aspects of my game I needed to work on. In international cricket, if you’re doing well, it doesn’t happen by accident. You have to raise your level and adopt new skills. And when I put that work in, I began to see results.”
