Pakistan’s all-rounders Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz have been criticised for their performances in the 2026 T20 World Cup. Pakistan were knocked out of the tournament after failing to beat Sri Lanka by a big margin in their final Super Eights game on Saturday and head coach Mike Hesson and captain Salman Ali Agha have been under fire for their calls. Pakistan spin great Saqlain Mushtaq has said that Hesson is largely responsible for Shadab and Nawaz’s failures.
Pakistan played both all-rounders in all their matches. “There are different types of all-rounders in the world. There is a bowling all-rounder and there is a batting all-rounder and there is one complete all-rounder. I have mentioned it before also,” said Mushtaq on the show Tapmad.
“In the Pakistan team, whichever all-rounders were picked up from the resources, I think in the case of Shadab and Nawaz, what their role was? If you see the stats, who were their wickets taking bowlers. First Usman Tariq did not play initially and we were told to pick him up and you brought him. Then they brought Abrar Ahmed, a pure bowler.
“Your batting balance was getting disturbed because you had these two all-rounders in the form of Shadab and Nawaz, on whose batting and bowling you had belief on. Both Nawaz and Shadab have given performances in batting and bowling also. Right now, things are running patchy. At this position, coach xx was demanding both things from these two. That you have to bat at this spot and bowl at this role. And in bowling, both of them were not bowling in death overs. Nawaz would come to bowl in power play sometimes. In middle overs, Usman Tariq and now Abrar would bowl.”
Shadab had his best score of this T20 World Cup in the form of the unbeaten knock of 36 runs against Namibia in the team’s last group encounter. His best bowling figures in this World Cup too came against Namibia in the same match, when he took three wickets. Nawaz on the other hand only scored a total of 20 runs in five innings in seven matches in the tournament. In terms of bowling, Nawaz took a total of seven wickets with his best performance coming against England in the previous Super 8 encounter, where he took two wickets for 26 runs. When asked by the hosts about the bowling performance of both the all-rounders in the tournament, Mushtaq once again blamed it on coach Hesson and asked how many wickets have Indian vice-captain Axar Patel, New Zealand captain and all-rounder Mitchell Santner or Sri Lankan all-rounder Dunith Wellalage have picked up in the tournament.
“What performance has Mitchell Santner had in the tournament? What’s the performance of Axar Patel? What’s the performance of Dunith Wellalage? How many wickets did they take? What I am saying is that Mike Hesson’s demand was these two will bat also and bowl too. He had belief in these two. When I was the head coach, the selection committee gave me the information that they are equally good. But their utilisation should have been good, things could have benefited better. Like they were given third over after the second over. Today they gave the third over to Naseem and the other day, they gave third over to Shadab against England,” added Mushtaq.
