Pakistan bowling coach Waqar Younis has on Thursday (October 17) heaped praise on young pace sensation Mohammad Hasnain, terming him as the most impressive face in the current crop of the fast-bowlers at the national side.
The legendary bowler also named few names including Naseem Shah and Akif Javed who can make a big impact in the game of cricket in the future, though, said they need to be properly groomed.
Recently, Hasnain became the youngest player to take a hat-trick in the T20 International cricket at the age of 19 years and 183 days old. He achieved the feat during the first T20I against Sri Lanka on October 5 when he dismissed Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Dasun Shanaka and Shehan Jayasuriya in Lahore.
However, Waqar feels that Hasnain is not ready for One Day International and Test cricket, suggesting him to focus on T20I cricket for the time being as he is still growing and he is still young and he needs to be groomed well before being a regular face in the white-ball and five-day format.
As per reports in PakPassion, Waqar said: “In cricket, pace makes a big difference; Mohammad Hasnain is one who has really impressed me – he is playing T20I cricket but he is not ready for 50 overs or Test cricket, he is still growing and he is still young; Naseem Shah is another one, Akif (Javed) is another one, he is a left-armer and his pace is not bad.”
He explained, “But even after that, he bowls 150Kph plus as we saw in the CPL! Although I agree with Shoaib Akhtar that he loses his pace due to running on his heels and that is why I feel he is not ready for the longer versions of the game. We need to groom him and prepare him for the longer version.”
Waqar signed off, “At the moment, I feel he is good for T20Is and he has the talent so we need to keep him with the team and try to sort out the problems such as running on the heels and his strides which are big, he needs to relax a little and needs to have rhythm in his run-up which I feel can be sorted.”
(With PakPassion Inputs)
