Hafeez clarifies Pakistan's Shaheen Afridi decision for 3rd AUS Test after Akram, Waqar's ‘real shocker’ accusations

Wasim had blamed Shaheen for making himself unavailable for the third Test while Waqar said that the decision "made me laugh", and called it "a real shocker".

The decision to rest Shaheen Afridi for the third and final Test match of the series against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground, where Pakistan lost by eight wickets to suffer a 0-3 whitewash, had received severe criticism from legends Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. And while the fast bowler had clarified the team management's stance over it, Mohammad Hafeez, Pakistan‘s director of cricket, on Saturday, cleared the air once again that it was a call which was not taken for the upcoming T20Is against New Zealand.

Mohammad Hafeez defends Pakistan's decision to rest Shaheen Afridi for third Test against Australia

Speaking to the media in Sydney after the team's third consecutive loss in the ongoing WTC cycle, which saw Pakistan slip from the top spot to the sixth in the table, Hafeez revealed that it was the management's call to rest Shaheen for the third game, despite the tourists trailing 0-2 in the contest, and not the player. He further insisted that it was solely taken to manage his workload.

"He bowled really well in those two games and bowled the most of any bowler," he said. "When I asked him before the third Test, his body was sore. And I need to look after him more than anything."

Pakistan were over-reliant on Shaheen after having a depleted squad owing to injuries of Naseem Shah and Abrar Ahmed while Haris Rauf was unavailable for the series. The left-armer, in fact, bowled 99.2 overs in the first two Tests, with only Nathan Lyon (104.1 overs) standing ahead of him in the list, although the spinner played all three games. With only a four-day gap between the Boxing Day Test and the New Year's game, Pakistan looked to rest Shaheen.

Hafeez further said: "If someone thinks their body is sore and they can't deliver the best, we need to look after the career of the individual. I will never make a decision where a player can lose his career for six months or a year. It was a tough call but we made that decision for the betterment of the players. Because we cannot make that decision at the cost of a player's career."

Although the criticism was largely aimed at the PCB for resting Shaheen when the call was made official earlier this week, Wasim had brushed aside the talk and rather accused the bowler for making himself unavailable for the third Test. Waqar, on the other hand, reckoned that Shaheen's absence "made me laugh", and called it "a real shocker".

Hafeez, however, clarified that Shaheen would be available for the series against New Zealand given that he is the new skipper of the T20Is for Pakistan.

“The second thing about our connecting series – because he is the captain, it would have been very difficult to completely (switch him) off from that series,” Hafeez said. “He has been announced as captain – he is supposed to play as captain. If this series wasn’t there, I could have pushed him [to play the last Test]…even then, the decision would have been this to be honest”.

“Because if a player understands that his body his sore and god forbid he has so much load that he goes into the injury zone, then I had to make this tough decision so that he doesn’t go into the zone that troubles him. In upcoming series, whenever his body responds to workload management, he shall play”.