PAK vs BAN: Shaheen Afridi dropped from second Bangladesh Test

Pakistan pacer Shaheen Afridi has been dropped from the second Test against Bangladesh scheduled to take place at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium from August 30.

The hosts announced their 12-member squad for the second Test which included spinner Abrar Ahmed and left-arm pacer Mir Hamza.

Shaheen has only bagged 16 wickets in 10 innings since his comeback from knee injury in July 2023.

"Shaheen's missed out this game," Pakistan's red-ball coach Jason Gillespie said. 

"We've had a good conversation with him, and he fully understands and appreciates the thinking behind it. Shaheen's been given some feedback. He's working on some things with his bowling to be as effective as he possibly can be. He's working really well with Azhar Mahmood. We want to see Shaheen at his best because we've got a lot of cricket in all formats and Shaheen's going to play a really big role in that."

"He is playing three formats for Pakistan. He also recently became father and we want him to spend some time with his family," he added.

Pakistan's 12 for second Test

Shan Masood (c), Saud Shakeel (vc), Abrar Ahmed, Mohammad Ali, Salman Ali Agha, Saim Ayub, Babar Azam, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Abdullah Shafique, Naseem Shah, Khurram Shehzad

Remember, Pakistan played four pacers in the first Test — Shaheen, Khurram Shahzad, Mohammad Ali and Naseem Shah — as the Shan Masood-led unit wanted to go with a pace attack, but things did not go their way as they were dominated by the Bangladesh batting lineup and lost the game by 10 wickets.

As per the sources, the team management, along with senior players, were not happy with the way the pacers performed in the first Test.

It is believed inside the dressing room that the pacers could not take advantage of the grass on the pitch and their declining pace also became a matter of discussion.

During the first Test, Naseem got three while Shaheen, Shahzad and Ali managed to get two wickets each but they were not enough as Bangladesh scored a plethora of runs during their first innings.

Chasing the 30-run target after bowling Pakistan out for 148 runs during their second innings, the visitors had no trouble as Zakir Hasan (15) and Shadman Islam (9) guided the visitors to the target in just 6.3 overs.

Meanwhile, in their first innings, Bangladesh scored 565 before they were all out with the experienced Mushfiqur Rahim scoring 191 runs.

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