‘We have a great mix of youth and experience’ – Sarfraz

Pakistan have enjoyed some success in limited-overs cricket recently, having beaten Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe 5-0 in a pair of five-match series, and also won the Champions Trophy 2017. They have since progressed to the Super Fours stage of the Asia Cup, beating Hong Kong but losing to India in the first round.

Sarfraz hinted that there were still places up for grabs, but also suggested Pakistan’s new players were “cementing their place in the team”.

“We are still in the process,” he said. “Our senior players like Shoaib Malik are helping a lot. Mohammad Hafeez worked a lot too. We have a good mix of youth and experience. Our youngsters are cementing their place in the team. Our goal is to make a pool of around 25 players. We’ll choose our World Cup squad from those players.”

Imam-ul-Haq is one young player who is close to cementing his place, having averaged 66.22 in his first 11 ODIs. “I want to win the World Cup for Pakistan,” said Imam. “I want to be the main guy. As everybody knows, Pakistan’s batting is always an issue, especially when we are chasing. I want to be the guy that our nation can trust that, ‘he’s the guy, when we chase, he will be the guy’.”

You can watch the full feature, in which Shadab Khan and Hasan Ali also have their say, below.