Cricketers Need To Be Groomed In Domestic Cricket: Waqar Younis

Former captain Waqar Younis sees some good cricketers emerging from Pakistan Super League (PSL), but believes the tournament will not produce quality Test cricketers.

ISLAMABAD, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Jun, 2018 ) :Former captain Waqar Younis sees some good cricketers emerging from Pakistan Super League (PSL), but believes the tournament will not produce quality Test cricketers.

He said cricketers need to be groomed and that process has to be done in domestic cricket. "PSL has received a lot of praise and credit for nurturing talent but domestic cricket also deserves some praise for producing good players," pakpassion.net quoted him as saying.

He said Pakistan domestic cricket has not always received the credit it has deserved, but the fact is that it has been producing high-quality cricketers for nearly 70 years.

Waqar said Pakistan domestic cricket can do more to help cricketers. "We are not quite there as compared to other nations' domestic structures, the standard of their pitches and the standard of their domestic cricket and it definitely needs more attention," he said.

He said skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed needs to lift his game batting at number six if he is looking to play a young team with a couple of all-rounders. "Sarfaraz needs to take more responsibility and lift his batting in Test cricket.

He is fine in the Limited-Overs formats but his performances with the bat have definitely dipped in Test cricket," he said and added Sarfraz will battle it out.

He said as far as Sarfraz's captaincy is concerned in all three formats I would stick with him, but there is no harm in keeping your eyes open in terms of future replacements.

Speaking of Shaheen Shah Afridi, he said he hopes Afridi stays fit as he is playing cricket at a very tender age. "They need to be very careful with him and not rush him into playing too much cricket. It would be better if he was groomed and prepared fully and not rushed into international cricket," he said.

He said Pakistan is now producing a generation of young, fearless cricketers such as Hasan Ali, Shadab Khan and Faheem Ashraf who have quickly found their feet in international cricket.

"It is important for Pakistan cricket to ensure they are finding the talent from places other than the major cricketing cities. In the past players have come through from the not-so-well-known areas like Mushtaq Ahmed, Mohammad Zahid, Mohammad Irfan and myself," he said.