Mickey Arthur says he understands why Pakistan did not pick Babar, Rizwan for Asia Cup 2025

Mumbai, Aug 28 (IANS) As the Pakistan men's team gets ready to take on neighbours Afghanistan in their preparation for the upcoming Asia Cup 2025, former head coach Mickey Arthur has backed his successor Mike Hesson and skipper Salman Agha's move to ignore senior players Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan.

Arthur said the skillset of players keeps evolving and said only those players who perform according to the team's Twenty20 style must get picked.

While backing the plans and approach of Hesson and Salman Agha in matching the Twenty20 cricket style of top teams like India and Australia, Arthur said he understands why former captains Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan were not picked for the Asia Cup 2025, starting on September 9. Before that, Pakistan will test its latest brand of hockey in the T20I Tri-series, in which Afghanistan and hosts USE are their opponents.

Arthur said under his tutelage, Pakistan had risen to number one in T20I rankings in 2018 after Babar Azam led the team to a runners-up finish in the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia.

A slump started after that, and since then, Pakistan has played 52 T20Is, losing 30 and winning 20 with two no results. They have now slipped to eighth in T20I rankings and face a transition phase with new coach Hesson dropping Babar and Rizwan for not matching the new and fast style of T20I cricket.

“Mike is an unbelievably good coach, and I respect him a lot,” Mickey told Telecom Asia Sport (www,telecomasia.net). “I am sure he will do a wonderful job for Pakistan. I think the game has changed. The T20 game has changed, and in terms of the skillset, you have to change with the times, and that’s no slight on Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan because they are incredibly good players.

Arthur said Hesson and Agha are selecting players who fit their vision, and that is why they ignored Babar and Rizwan.

“But obviously Mike and Salman Agha are trying to get a vision and brand they want to play, and they are selecting the personnel that is at their disposal to be able to execute their brand (of play)," said the seasoned coach.

“Under my coaching, we became world No.1 in T20Is. I think we won 11 series in a row. Sarfaraz and I did a lot of work and formulated a plan on how we can win with the three resources that we had at our disposal. Those resources, we thought, were a good bowling lineup. We had pace, we had swing, and we had the ability to take wickets constantly. There was a good spin attack with us.

“We decided that we must get to around 160, and then we knew we could defend that with the kind of bowling attack we had in the conditions of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. That was the game plan, and that worked invariably. It even worked in New Zealand. We kind of won around the world because we had a very good plan and a vision.

“We built the team around those skillsets that we had at our disposal. We had good death bowling with Mohammad Amir and Shaheen Shah Afridi. They had the ability to get wickets, and in the middle overs, Shadabd was good, and Imad gave us good Power-play overs. That's kind of how we did that. The team then started to slump because they did not have a brand, and brand is the best word. The brand went all over, and when it’s all over, people do not know what they are playing for. Then people end up playing for themselves because they do not know what the plan is.

He said the team had lost this approach and thus slipped down the rankings, and it is only now that the team management is trying to build its own style of play.

--IANS

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