‘Some of Pak U19 players are future stars’

KARACHI: Some of the youngsters who were part of the Under-19 squad in South Africa series are future stars, said their coach Azam Khan on Tuesday.

Talking to ‘The News’, he said that the youngsters’ wonderful performance in South Africa was overshadowed by the thrilling matches of the World Cup in England. Azam, a veteran of one Test and six ODIs for Pakistan, said that he would submit the report of the tour to PCB in a couple of days, which would have details about each player.

He said that the tour was not easy as the victory margin of 7-0 showed. “The players we played against had already played against India, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. They were in full form and the weather was cold and wet. But our strength was fast bowling and we used the bowlers according to our plan,” he added.

He said that fast bowler Naseem Shah and left arm spinner Amir Ali’s wicket-taking ability played an important role in the success. He said that medium pacers Abbas Afridi, Akhtar Shah and Sheraz Khan also bowled well.

Azam said that captain Rohail Nazir’s batting and wicket-keeping were great. Rohail was declared the player of the series with 318 runs and 10 victims behind the stumps. The coach said that Haider Ali scored more than 300 runs with one century and three fifties. Muhammad Haris and Irfan Nazeer also batted well, he added. He said that he expected some of the players to become part of Pakistan senior team in future if they continued the way they played in South Africa.