“There are 15 months to the World Cup,” he said. “Every team prepares pitches that suit them when they play in their backyard to win,” Afridi said. “We have Test series [in the West Indies and England coming up] in which some of these players will play and they can use them to prepare themselves [for the World Cup]… We played on green and bouncy pitches when we went to Australia under [Mohammad] Rizwan’s captaincy and we won that series. You cannot offer them green wickets when they come here because we have to win.
“These were tough wickets, and scoring runs or spending time on them was not easy. We have time on our hands before the World Cup and we will prepare pitches of different characteristics as well in the build-up.”
There were no further debuts in the second and third ODIs, however, as Pakistan played the same side in all three matches, despite uncapped Ahmed Daniyal and Rohail Nazir warming the bench. The decision of recalling Shadab Khan to the squad for these matches generated the most discussion. These were his first matches in the format since the 2023 World Cup. He struggled with the ball in the first two matches as he was the most expensive bowler across both teams, but bowled with discipline in the last match.
“There were some players who got an opportunity in this series,” Afridi said. “We played the same team throughout the series, which has not happened for the last one year… It was good to see how Arafat Minhas bowled throughout the three matches and so was the case with Abrar [Ahmed], who also bowled a good spell today.
“But the biggest positive was Shadab Khan’s performance. Everyone questioned why he was getting opportunities regularly. But, I feel, it is only mature players who can win you such [close] matches in tough conditions. He bowled with control and took two wickets.”
Pakistan have a rare break of a month-and-a-half before their Test tour of the West Indies. They will fly to England from the Caribbean for the three-Test series and host Sri Lanka for a full tour after that, expected to be in October-November. That is when Pakistan are expected to feature in white-ball matches next.
