Pakistan in South Africa – Misbah-ul-Haq forced to defend Sharjeel Khan selection, insists fitness not compromised

The left-handed opener has been picked for the T20I leg of the South Africa and Zimbabwe tours

Pressure is mounting on the Pakistan management, with head coach Misbah-ul-Haq in the firing line this time. He has maintained that fitness standards will not be compromised on for anyone looking to work their way into the national side, insisting that Sharjeel Khan‘s selection isn’t a compromise on fitness but a player picked with everyone’s consent.

Since the changing of the chief selector, fitness has been downgraded as a criterion for picking players, allowing Sharjeel and Azam Khan most notably to come into contention. The previous head coach Mickey Arthur had an uncompromising view on fitness standards and what they meant for a player’s selection, but those have become less of a priority over the past few years. The fitness parameters are clearly mandated in players’ contracts, and the head coach insisted they were not being done away with or eroded.

“We are not bringing the standards of fitness down,” Misbah said during a virtual press conference a day before leaving for South Africa. “We have had detailed discussions about it with all trainers and National High-performance center coaches. Certain targets to players can be customised, such as whether they are overweight, their fat level, endurance level – we will simplify it but we will not lower the standards. We will look at ground fitness and match fitness. It’s not like if before we had a benchmark of 18 in the yo-yo test that we will bring it down to 15 or 14. That’s not happening.

“There was great discussion on him and his role in the team. How we will bring him in fitness and his on-field performance and standards of our fitness. We were in agreement that we will plan and allocate the time he is with us. We got everyone to play domestic cricket and it was a busy and tough year all around with Covid-19. But now we have time and hopefully, you will see that his fitness will get better. Otherwise, we have an understanding with National High-Performance Centre that if there are issues around certain players’ fitness, they be referred to the HPC so that both skills and fitness level can be worked upon simultaneously.”