DUBAI: Pakistan cricket team coach Waqar Younis urged his bowlers to step up and fill the big void left by the absence of ace spinner Saeed Ajmal when they meet Australia in the limited over and Test series.
Ajmal, ranked number one in one-day cricket, was last month suspended after his bowling action was found illegal following an assessment in a bio-mechanical laboratory in Australia.
Pakistan will badly miss Ajmal who has single-handedly shouldered their bowling attack in all three formats of the game, and even more so in the lone Twenty20 against Australia in Dubai today.
But Waqar said Pakistan will have to live with the fact that Ajmal is not available. “Ajmal has been a world beater for the last seven years and he has been at the top of his game but we have to live with it and we have to find some new boys and make sure the youngsters deliver,”
Waqar said. Pakistan have selected 22-year-old left-arm spinner Raza Hasan to replace Ajmal. “In a way it is an opportunity for young players like Hasan, or some other spinners we might bring into the Test squad, and also the responsibility of some of the senior bowlers to step up and perform,” said Waqar.
Waqar said Ajmal’s absence should not affect the team.
“With Ajmal gone out, things are different now and we have to really think hard as a bunch and not as one individual like Ajmal winning us games. Since he is not there what should we do? Are we going to start losing games?
“I think that is very negative and we need to think positive,” Waqar said. AFP
