KARACHI: Former Test captain Rashid Latif on Wednesday lashed out at the national team management’s selection policy and asked them why some of the leading performers including Zahid Mahmood, Danish Aziz, Aamir Yamin were being ignored for the home series against Zimbabwe.

Speaking on a private channel, Rashid who is known to be a fair and outspoken man, said when players like Zahid and Danish are ignored then the selection policy becomes questionable.

“Zahid’s performance speaks for itself. The bowler has potential and performance at the same time then why you are not selecting him?” asked Rashid. “If a player hailing from Dadu and playing from Southern Punjab performs consistently but is still gets neglected, what kind of message are the selectors giving here.

“At the same time, a player from KP gets selected in the same scenario, so as far as I am concerned, our selection policy has serious problems and question marks about it,” he said. “Anyone with good understanding will realise the negligence of particular regions.”

The former wicket-keeper batsman suggested that the team management should give chance to players from different regions to generate interest in every nook and corner of the country.

“If you select Zahid from Dadu, upcoming talent will get confidence there. You should have tried Bismillah Khan from Balochistan and engaged a lot of other budding youngsters. If you want to attract different regions towards cricket, you have to pick players from those areas on merit,” argued Rashid.

It must be noted here that the national team’s selection headed by Misbah-ul-Haq has come under severe criticism after a few National T20 Cup 2020 performers were ignored in the selected outfit for the Zimbabwe series.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2020