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Babar Azam Ignored; Saim Ayub Picks Hardik Pandya, Bumrah In His T20I World XI

Aakash Saini

Saim Ayub and Hardik Pandya [Source: @SalmanAsif2007, @Vipintiwari952/x]Saim Ayub and Hardik Pandya [Source: @SalmanAsif2007, @Vipintiwari952/x]

Pakistan’s rising star Saim Ayub seems to be struggling on his return to competitive cricket. After succumbing to an injury while fielding in South Africa earlier this year, the 22-year-old was forced to miss Pakistan’s home tri-series and the subsequent 2025 ICC Champions Trophy.

Currently plying his trade for the Peshawar Zalmi franchise in the PSL 2025 season, Ayub has listed just 119 runs in eight innings at a dismal batting average of 14.87. Nonetheless, the youngster was recently asked to name his ideal World T20I XI. Much to everybody’s surprise, Saim Ayub excluded his Peshawar Zalmi skipper and national teammate Babar Azam, and chose a couple of star Indian players in his list instead.

Saim Ayub names just one Pakistani in World XI

While speaking on the Off Topic Zalmi podcast, Saim Ayub was asked to name his ideal World T20I XI, with a unique restriction of choosing no more than two Pakistani players. However, the 22-year-old picked just one Pakistani cricketer, in the form of explosive opening batter Fakhar Zaman and paired him with Australia’s Travis Head.

Excluding Babar Azam from his list, Ayub named England’s Jos Buttler, West Indies’ Nicholas Pooran, South Africa’s Heinrich Klaasen as the rest of the specialist batters in the team. Among all-rounders, the youngster picked Ben Stokes, Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya, Rashid Khan and Mitchell Santner. Jasprit Bumrah and Mitchell Starc constituted Ayub’s primary pace attack.

Saim Ayub’s world T20I playing XI:

Fakhar Zaman (Pakistan), Travis Head (Australia), Jos Buttler (England), Nicholas Pooran (West Indies), Heinrich Klaasen (South Africa), Ben Stokes (England), Hardik Pandya (India), Rashid Khan (Afghanistan), Mitchell Santner (New Zealand), Jasprit Bumrah (India), Mitchell Starc (Australia)

Saim Ayub has managed to aggregate just 119 runs in eight innings of the PSL 2025 season at a dismal average of 14.87 and a strike rate of 117.82. Moreover, he scored 50 of those runs in a single innings, and another 49 against Multan Sultans on May 5 in Multan.