Pakistan announces the 17-players squad for Test series against South Africa, Hassan Ali and Haris Rauf included

The South African team after landing in Karachi
The South African team is moving to the hotels along with their luggage after landing in Karachi

Pakistan cricket selectors have announced the 17-players squad ahead of their Test series against South Africa, starting from Tuesday. Hassan Ali and Haris Rauf make into the shortlisted squad of 17-players, Imran Butt is also set to play as an opener in the first Test. 

Babar Azam who had a thumb injury during the away tour in New Zealand which ruled him out of the Tests and T20I’s have come back in the squad and he will be leading Pakistan in the first Test against South Africa.

The above mentioned three young players will be part of the squad and they will feature in warm-up and training sessions at the National Stadium Karachi. The team of 11 players will be shortlisted by the captain along with the advice of the head coach.

The 17-player squad is: 

OpenersAbid Ali and Imran Butt 
Middle-order batsmenAzhar Ali, Babar Azam, Fawad Alam, and Saud Shakeel
All-roundersFaheem Ashraf and Mohammad Nawaz
WicketkeepersMohammad Rizwan and Sarfaraz Ahmed
SpinnersNauman Ali , Sajid Khan and Yasir Shah
Fast bowlersHaris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Shah Afridi, and Tabish Khan 

After a recent embarrassing defeat of 2-0 by New Zealand in their home series, Azhar Ali is looking forward to getting the advantage of the home series against South Africa after a long time. 

Azhar Ali thinks that the away tours are tough for Asian teams as they could not reap out a good result but the home conditions are very different so things could turn out towards them.

“Home conditions bring confidence in players. If you remember, our batsmen in the previous two home series (against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) had big chunks of runs and did really well,”

ESPNcricinfo quoted Azhar as saying. 

“But on away tours, it’s always tough for Asian teams. But our batsmen fought it out. In England and New Zealand there was at least one batsman who made a century,”

he added.

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