Qasim Akram to steer Pakistan males’s facet at Asian Games
Qasim Akram will captain Pakistan on the Asian Games, the place the lads’s staff will play for a gold medal in – T20 – cricket between September 28 and October 7 in Hangzhou, China. With World Cup preparations in full swing, Pakistan have, as anticipated, named a younger, second-string squad, with Asif Ali, Mohammad Hasnain, Shahnawaz Dahani and Usman Qadir among the many highest-profile names.
Neither the captain, Akram, nor the vice-captain, have performed worldwide cricket for Pakistan in a squad the place solely eight out of 15 gamers have. Much of the squad’s latest enjoying time has include the Shaheens, with whom eight gamers from this squad toured Zimbabwe for 2 four-day video games and 6 50-over video games, earlier than triumphing within the ACC Emerging Cup in Sri Lanka final month, and later ending as runners-up in a T20 match in Darwin.
Pakistan will enter the match on the quarter-final stage, which suggests their first sport will happen in early October, with the ultimate set for October 7.
Cricket has been performed on the Asian Games twice earlier than – at Guangzhou 2010 and Incheon 2014. Bangladesh gained the primary version with Sri Lanka rising triumphant the second time. Afghanistan have been runners-up on each events. Pakistan didn’t characteristic in 2014, and completed as bronze medallists of their solely look in 2010.
They may also subject a girls’s staff at this version of the Games. That squad, led by Nida Dar, was announced in July. The girls’s competitors on the Games can be performed earlier than the lads’s commences.
Pakistan males’s squad for the Asian Games:
Qasim Akram (capt), Omair Bin Yousuf, Aamir Jamal, Arafat Minhas, Arshad Iqbal, Asif Ali, Haider Ali, Khushdil Shah, Mirza Tahir Baig, Mohammad Hasnain, Muhammad Akhlaq (wk), Rohail Nazir (wk), Shahnawaz Dahani, Sufiyan Muqeem, Usman Qadir