ISLAMABAD: Pakistani batsman Kamran Akmal believes Mohammad Rizwan’s performances on the England tour were unbelievably good, but said the Peshawar-born wicket-keeper needs to establish him as an opener.
“Considering this was Rizwan’s first tour of England, his performances were unbelievably good. I can assure you that it’s extremely difficult to perform well in England as a wicket-keeper. We have seen some fairly good keepers struggle there including the likes of current England wicket-keeper Jos Buttler. From my experience, I had issues keeping in England and the only three wicket-keepers who have done well in England in my view are England’s Matt Prior, Australia’s Tim Paine and Rizwan. So, one must give credit to Rizwan for all his hard work which resulted in some outstanding performances,” Pakpassion.net quoted him as saying.
Kamran, who has represented Pakistan 268 times, scoring 6871 runs and taken 369 catches, said he feels Rizwan was struggling a bit to find a place in the shorter formats and especially Twenty20s.
“The only solution to this is for Rizwan to establish himself as an opener as that would not only make him indispensable but also result in an excellent team combination. However, I will sound a note of caution here and request the selectors to make sure that if they play Rizwan in other formats then they must judge him on specific formats only, it should not be the case that he loses his place in Tests if he doesn’t perform well in T20s or vice versa,” he said.
Speaking about former Skipper Sarfraz Ahmed, Kamran said Sarfraz captained Pakistan sides for almost 3 years before he was dropped but he now has a clear path in front of him if he wishes to make a comeback in the national side.
“He must concentrate on not only doing well in domestic cricket as a wicket-keeper but also as a captain. I would like him to bat in the top order so that he can push himself and demonstrate his utility. Especially when it comes to T20 or ODI cricket, I would like him to bat up the order and possibly open the innings as currently he comes too late to bat which really doesn’t give him a chance to score many runs. Similarly, in red-ball cricket, he needs to bat at the number 4 or 5 position and showcase his talent there too which will benefit him in the long run,” he said.
