Australia’s legendary all-rounder Shane Watson heaped praises on Pakistan’stop batter Baber Azam and ace pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi as he revealed thetop five players in World T20I.
Watson, while featuring in the latest episode of ICC Review, unveiled thefive players link he would select first ifgiven a task to select a World XI in the shortest format of the game to aquery from the host Sanjana Ganesan.
“First one I’d pick would be Babar Azamlink,” Watson said. “He’s the No.1T20I batsman in the world, and he just knows how to dominate.
“It’s like he’s not even taking any risks, and he scores incredibly quicklyagainst the best bowlers in the world.
“He’s going to do very well in Australian conditions (during the T20 WorldCup) as well, as his technique is very much built for Australianconditions.”
The world cup-winning all-rounder then went on to pick Pakistan ace pacer,Shaheen and praised his wicket-taking ability while referring to hisperformance in last year’s ICC World T20.
“And the last one is Shaheen Afridilink,” Watson said. “Hiswicket-taking ability is something special.
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“We saw in the last men’s T20 World Cup his ability to be able to get thebest batsmen out with that brand new ball. I’d be very surprised if hedoesn’t really dominate in Australian conditions, with the ball swingingaround and fast, bouncy wickets,” Watson maintained.
The right-handed all-rounder also expressed his concerns over Shaheengetting a bit erratic if he does not get early wickets, while at the sametime hoping that the left-arm pacer would be working on it.
“My only little concern with him is, if he doesn’t take wickets to startwith, then he can tail off a little bit.
“But I’m sure he’s been working on that. I’d be surprised if he doesn’tdominate here.”
It is pertinent to mention here that Shaheen was the only bowler thatWatson picked in his first top five playerslink. Whereas, the three batters besideBabar were England’s Jos Buttler, Australia’s David Warner, and India’sSuryakumar Yadav.
