Maaz Sadaqat, the young Pakistan all-rounder born on May 15, 2005, has identified Mohammad Rizwan as a guiding influence throughout his cricket career.
Among those who offered valuable insights into professional cricket were Rizwan, Iftikhar Ahmed and Sahibzada Farhan. Sadaqat applied the methods and mindsets he observed from these senior players to his own development.
“Mohammad Rizwan has been my role model since beginning of my cricket career,” Sadaqat said as quoted by Batting with Bimal.
Babar on Pakistan shake-up: I was not consulted
Sadaqat has not been selected for Pakistan’s recent Test assignments. He was absent from the two-Test series against West Indies, which concluded in a 1-1 draw. The young all-rounder has also been left out of the ongoing three-Test series against England, where Pakistan entered the third Test in Birmingham on September 9 trailing 2-0.
Sadaqat has featured in only six ODIs for Pakistan so far, but he has already amassed more than 1,000 runs in each format of domestic cricket. Meanwhile, Mohammad Rizwan was left out of Pakistan’s squad for the third Test against England after managing scores of 12, 41, 7 and 1 across the first two matches of the series.
Rizwan has scored more than 7,000 runs across international formats and boasts an average above 40 in white-ball cricket. His domestic record is equally impressive, with over 7,000 first-class runs, more than 6,500 in List A cricket and over 9,000 in T20s.
Following Pakistan’s defeat in the second Test at Lord’s, Rizwan was among seven players sent home, with seven replacements brought in, including five uncapped Test players.
Pakistan made significant changes to its Test squad and coaching structure following the second Test at Lord’s. The Pakistan Cricket Board replaced the red-ball head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and bowling coach Umar Gul with white-ball head coach Mike Hesson and bowling coach Ashley Noffke to lead the team’s Test programme going forward. These changes reflected the board’s effort to revitalise the Test team’s performance during a challenging series.
Pakistan Squad for 3rd Test against England in Birmingham:
Babar Azam (captain), Abdullah Fazal, Arafat Minhas, Azan Awais, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Ali, Muhammad Imran, Mohammad Imran Jnr, Ghazi Ghori (wicketkeeper), Razaullah, Saad Baig (wicketkeeper) Saim Ayub, Sajid Khan, Saud Shakeel, Shan Masood, Abdullah Shafique, Ubaid Shah Cricket
