LAHORE: Head coach Ijaz Ahmed on Wednesday said the axing of upcoming fast bowler Nasim Shah from the national junior team, currently preparing for the ICC U-19 World Cup, has been taken after considerable discussions with the coaches of the senior team.

The U-19 World Cup is being held in South Africa from Jan 17 to Feb 9. Sixteen teams, divided into four groups, will be featuring in the most prestigious tournament for budding cricketers across the world. India are the defending champions of the event.

“The decision of pulling out Nasim [from the U-19 squad] did not hurt me. I had a productive discussion on this subject with senior team’s head coach Misbah-ul-Haq and bowling coach Waqar Younis,” Ijaz said while talking to reporters after the resumption of the training camp following a short break.

“The main purpose of [raising] a strong national junior squad is to provide good talent to the senior team. Nasim has found his place in Pakistan [senior] team quite fast as he first went to Australia for the Test series and later also played the [recently-held] home Test series against Sri Lanka. Considering all this, we feel that he is now a member of the senior team, and therefore should not be demoted to the junior level,” Ijaz, who played 60 Tests and 250 ODIs for Pakistan from 1986 to 2001, added.

Born in Lower Dir, the tearaway Nasim, 16, was noticed in senior international cricket during Pakistan’s Test tour to Australia late last year. Though the strongly-built right-armer could not perform any wonders Down Under, he impressed many with his extra pace, direction and control. Then in the home Test series against Sri Lanka, the budding fast bowler made his mark in the second Test at Karachi, where he became the youngest paceman in the game’s history to take five wickets in an innings of a Test match.

“We have a good number of talented players. Tahir Hussain and Mohammad Shahzad, who were selected for the U-19 World Cup in bold decisions taken by me, are among these promising youngsters. At the end of the World Cup you all will endorse my decisions.”

All-rounder Shahzad, who was picked from the U-16 lot, plays as opening batsman and bowls medium fast. Ijaz believes that Tahir, who is a left-arm pacer, is quite effective with the new ball.

After the World Cup, Ijaz said, he would hold a three-month training camp in which the best players from the Emerging team, which won the last Asian Emerging Cup in Bangladesh, and from the current lot of the junior team would be picked for further honing their skills to meet world-class standards.

Lauding pacer Aamir Khan, the 51-year-old Ijaz said the bowler was clocking 140-plus average speed. “If Aamir continues hard work he will become the need of Pakistan team in the near future,” the coach of the junior team claimed.

“Hyder Ali and Rohail Nazir [batsmen of the national junior side] have the potential to reach the senior team in future.”

He said India as well as West Indies and Australia would give tough time to Pakistan at the World Cup in South Africa. “India are already playing a series in South Africa,” Ijaz noted.

“I possess a good experience of playing cricket in South Africa. So, I will try my best to update my [U-19] players about the conditions there.”

Ijaz said a rigorous camp for the U-19 players was in progress.

“In the previous camp session of 25 days eight matches were held and now in the second session four more will be held in the coming days.”

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2020