The absence of Babar wasn’t the only surprise in Hesson’s squad for Pakistan’s upcoming contests, with Mohammad Rizwan also missing out on the 17-player group as selectors opted to choose batters that consistently scored at a high strike rate.
Hesson indicated it was important that players that had performed well in recent white-ball matches were rewarded and said that choosing batters that scored quickly would be part of his selection process going forward.
“We were challenged with three different surfaces (in recent matches against Bangladesh and West Indies)” Hesson said.
“In Lahore, the surfaces were flat and the batting excelled. We went to Bangladesh where they were incredibly challenging and low-scoring games. Our top-order sets the game up. All the games we won the top order performed really well.
“The third game in the West Indies, our openers put on 140 (138). We need that at a run rate that gets us ahead of the game. T20 is all about setting the game up and being ahead of the game all the time in case you get yourself out. From a batting point of view we’ve got a line-up that can continue to do that.”
Pakistan squad for tri-series and Asia Cup: Salman Ali Agha (c), Abrar Ahmed, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Hussain Talat, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Haris, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Waseem Jnr, Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Salman Mirza, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Sufyan Moqim
