Players who perform well in Asia Cup stand a chance for World Cup selection: Pak U19 captain

Mar 12 : Pakistan younger cricket team captain Babar Azam on Monday said players who would perform well in the Under-19 Asia Cup will stand a good chance of making in the World Cup (WC) squad. The Under 19 Asia Cup will be held in Malaysia this year while the Under 19 World Cup in August. “There will be a pre Asia Cup training camp before the Asia Cup which a total of 40 boys will attend and from those boys, a squad will be selected to take part in the Asia Cup. Whoever performs well in the Asia Cup will stand a good chance of making the World Cup squad. I think once we see how we perform in the Asia Cup and see which boys are selected, we will then have a better idea of how we will do at the World Cup,” Babar told Pakpassion.net in an interview. Babar, who led the team to a series victory over South Africa under-19 team in the Youth One-Day International (ODI) at the Stellenbosch University Ground this year, said Zia ul Haq and Ehsan Adil both did very well in South Africa. “Sami Aslam is a very good player and made a lot of runs on that tour. Umar Waheed batted very well in the middle order on the tour of South Africa. He seemed to score runs when the team needed them most and held the middle order together very well. He’s also a good fielder,” he said. Babar, who opened for Pakistan in South Africa but bats in the middle order for ZTBL, said, “I prefer to open the innings, but ZTBL have required me to bat at number 4, which is also fine. It’s whatever the team requires really.” Babar said bowling is an area that he is looking to develop and is also working on it. “Hopefully I will start to bowl more regularly going forward.” Babar said that playing international cricket is the dream of every professional cricketer. “The next step from Under 19 cricket is to establish myself in domestic cricket, then perform well in the Pakistan A side and then hopefully get selected for the senior Pakistan side,” he concluded.