ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s Bowling Coach Waqar Younis believes young playerswere not been given enough opportunity in the ongoing National Twenty20 Cup2019 at Faisalabad.
“There must be two Under19 players in the Playing XI of each team in thetournament,” he said while talking on Shoaib Akhtar’s YouTube channel.
Waqar, who played 87 Tests and 262 ODIs for Pakistan from 1989 to 2003,said it should have been made mandatory in such tournaments to include twoU19 players in the Playing XI. “The Pakistan Super League (PSL) was comingup. I feel the youngsters were not given enough opportunity in thetournament which was the best platform for grooming them,” he said.
To a question, Waqar, who had previously worked as bowling coach with thenational side from 2006 to 2007, said he cannot search for bowlers likeShoaib Akhtar and Wasim Akram as it was a part of natural talent, but if Icome to know about such talented players than would definitely groom them.
“We have been working on some youngsters like Musa Khan and MuhammadHusnain. But it requires a lot of work and long time to develop playerslike Shoaib and Wasim,” he said and added that they have been looking up tothe domestic cricket for new talent.
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Waqar, who in the past had also been associated with the team as headcoach, was of the view that if upcoming talent was seen which can begroomed then definitely he would be picked up. “When I was the head coachof the national team I preferred giving opportunity to new talent,” he said.
The former pacer, who holds the record for the youngest Pakistani Testcaptain and the third youngest Test captain in history, said there was needof bowlers like Wahab Riaz and Muhammad Amir in T20 cricket. “Wahab andAmir are very clear that they won’t play test cricket,” he said.
