At just 16, Pakistan's express bowling sensation Naseem Shah can be a match-winner in the opening Test against Australia.
At just 16, Pakistan's express bowling sensation Naseem Shah can be a match-winner in the opening Test against Australia.
Reeling from his mother's death last week the young lad will be making his Test debut against Australia at the Gabba in Brisbane starting on Thursday.
He impressed everyone with his fiery eight-over spell against Australia A in Perth. Naseem will join a handful of others to debut at 16, including Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar.
Naseem has only played seven first-class games and selectors will look to see how he copes in the heat of battle over five days against world-class batsmen such as Steve Smith and David Warner.
Aussie skipper Tim Paine, however, has claimed that his side has done their homework on the entire young brigade.
During the pre-match press conference, Paine said, “We're prepared for all of them. We've had a really good look at them. That's the thing with Pakistan. They've got a lot of different options, a lot of skill and by the looks of it a fair bit of pace. We've made sure that when we go out tomorrow, we've looked at enough possible footage as we can of their pace attack and their batters."
"What we don't want to do is go out there at some stage tomorrow and be surprised by something we see, whether that's their spinner, their quicks or their batsmen.”
“We've done our research on them, we've obviously spoken to a lot of the guys in Australia A team who have faced them first hand. We've had other guys in the team who have faced them before and some of them are unknown. We've done our work on all of them,” he added.
On the prospect of playing a schoolboy cricketer Naseem in Test cricket, Pain claimed: “I played against a few [16-year-olds] last week in club cricket. Certainly, at Test level it's a bit unusual but by the looks of him he looks a really exciting talent.”
The Aussie skipper then went on to add, “Pakistan has got a knack of finding these young fast bowlers. He looks like another one that's going to add to that rich history of fast bowlers they seem to produce. I haven't been to a selection meeting yet where they said, 'no we ain't pick him because he's 16'."
"If he's in your best bowlers he's in your best bowlers regardless of age and that goes the other way as well. You can be 35 and be in the best team, there's certainly no age limit.”
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 "Tim Paine and Naseem Shah")
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