BULAWAYO: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Wednesday, unveiled the national men’s team’s playing XI for the third and last T20I against Zimbabwe, scheduled to take place here at Queens Sports Club on Thursday.
The touring side, who have already clinched the three-match series 2-0, made four changes to their lineup for the remaining fixture.
As a result, Sahibzada Farhan, Qasim Akram, Mohammad Hasnain and Arafat Minhas have been added to the playing XI, replacing Saim Ayub, Muhammad Irfan Khan, Abrar Ahmed and Haris Rauf.
The move is part of the green shirts' strategy to test their bench strength ahead of the ICC Men's Champions Trophy.
The touring side, who entered the ongoing series, carrying the weight of their clean sweep defeat against Australia last month, got back on winning track by dismantling Zimbabwe in the first two fixtures.
The green shirts won the opening match convincingly by 57 runs before completely outclassing Zimbabwe by 10 wickets in the second T20I, which saw plenty of records being broken.
Batting first, Zimbabwe’s batting unit unfolded on a meagre 57 despite a decent start provided by their openers Brian Bennett and Tadiwanashe Marumani.
The home side ran into the worst collapse by a full member side in men’s T20I to succumb to their lowest total in the format.
Pakistan, in response, raced to the victory in just 33 deliveries to register the largest victory, in terms of balls remaining, in a T20I involving two full member teams.
Pakistan's Playing XI for third T20I: Omair Bin Yousuf, Sahibzada Farhan, Usman Khan, Salman Agha (c), Tayyab Tahir, Qasim Akram, Abbas Afridi, Jahandad Khan, Sufiyan Muqeem, Arafat Minhas, Mohammad Hasnain.
Atique ur Rehman Atique ur Rehman is a senior reporter for Geo News.
