Pakistan announce 20-man squad for Bangladesh Tests

The Pakistan Cricket Board announced a 20-man squad for the two-match Test series against Bangladesh. The series starts on November 26 with the first Test in Chattogram. Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Hasan Ali and Mohammad Rizwan are the only players part of the T20 World Cup playing XI who have been named in the Test squad as well. 

As far as the T20 World Cup squad is concerned, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Mohammad Nawaz have been able to make the 20-member team. Among the others are familiar faces in Imam-ul-Haq, Abid Ali, Azhar Ali and Fawad Alam with the bat. With the ball too, Mohammad Abbas, Naseem Shah and Nauman Ali have been able to retain the place while Yasir Shah has been ignored once again. 

Some fresh faces in Kamran Ghulam, Abdullah Shafique and Saud Shakeel have been named in the side while two spinners in Zahid Mahmood and Sajid Khan, who went on the Zimbabwe tour have also been retained. The exclusion of Shahnawaz Dahani from the squad is a worrying sign given that he is one of the promising fast bowlers in the Pakistan line-up who hasn’t yet been tested at the world stage. 

The two Tests would be part of the World Test Championship 2021-23 cycle. 

Pakistan Test squad

Babar Azam (Captain), Abdullah Shafique, Abid Ali, Azhar Ali, Fawad Alam, Imam-Ul-Haq, Kamran Ghulam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Mohammad Nawaz, Bilal Asif, Hasan Ali, Mohammad Abbas, Naseem Shah, Nauman Ali, Sajid Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Zahid Mahmood 

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