Pakistan recently announced their T20 squad for the upcoming T20 series versus New Zealand. And in this regard, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced their new skipper in Salman Ali Agha, who replaced Mohammad Rizwan in the role.
Agha became Pakistan’s fourth T20 captain for the Pakistan team since 2024.
“It’s an honour for me and also a challenge,” Agha said at a press conference in Lahore. “We’ve brought a few youngsters into the team who have been playing the brand of cricket in domestic cricket that we want to play in the national side going forward.
“We have to focus on our intent and approach. We have to improve that. In modern day cricket these things are important. This is a young team and we want to play fearless cricket. That is high-risk cricket, which is a requirement in modern cricket. There will be failures with that approach, but we have to support our players.”
With an eye on the Asia Cup (in T20 format) later this year and the World Cup in India and Sri Lanka the following year, the PCB announced that they had appointed Agha captain. Shadab Khan, a player who is suited to this style of cricket, has been called up to serve as vice-captain for this initiative.
“The reason for Shadab coming back is that he has good captaincy experience, plus also his mindset is to play aggressive cricket,” explained the interim head coach Aqib Javed. “His mindset is important because as vice-captain, with Agha also thinking that way, Shadab will be good. The combination is good.”
Although there have been rumors of a new coach, Aaqib, who is also in charge of selection, will continue to play those roles for the five Twenty20 Internationals and three One-Day Internationals against New Zealand. When asked directly about Babar and Rizwan’s fates, he made a clear connection between their dismissal and the playing style Pakistan aspires to use.
“You can’t rule anyone out forever but for the moment we feel that we need to bring in newer, younger players and change the style of cricket we are playing. Many teams have separated their T20 sides from the others, up to 80-90% [of the personnel] different.”
Over the course of the following 18 months or so, Agha and Aaqib discussed creating a pool of 20–25 talents for Pakistan to work with. Additionally, both emphasized that supporting them in the face of setbacks would be equally crucial.
Aaqib admitted that he currently benefits from the volatility that has plagued Pakistani cricket over the past few years.
“We have changed nearly 16 coaches and 26 selectors in the last two years or so,” he said. “You put that formula on any team in the world, I think they will also be in the same situation. Until you get consistency right from the top down to the bottom, from the chairman down, then your team will not progress.”
T20I squad – Salman Ali Agha (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Abdul Samad, Abrar Ahmed, Haris Rauf, Hasan Nawaz, Jahandad Khan, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Haris, Muhammad Irfan Khan, Omair Bin Yousaf, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Sufyan Moqim and Usman Khan
