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Islamabad, Apr. 18 (ANI): Former Pakistan cricket captain Asif Iqbal has said that middle-order batsman and vice-captain Misbah-ul-Haq should be in the national one-day squad.

In an interview with Pakpassion, Iqbal said: “I think both Misbah and Younis should be regular features in test cricket rather than in one days. I am a little disappointed that Misbah is in the one day squad, whereas, really, he should have been excluded. It would be totally unfair now if he goes ahead and scores lots of runs whereas in the much needed situation in the world cup, he didn’t deliver! A youngster should have been given a space in his place.”

He said that the Pakistan cricket team had had a tremendously successful World Cup, and added that to finish up in the top four (of the event), was a huge achievement, given that Pakistan had been starved off international cricket back home for nearly two years.

He described Shahid Afridi as an inspirational captain who motivated the players to perform.

But he said that Afridi committed a few grave errors which could be described as errors of judgement - “errors that I suppose, every captain makes while captaining a side and paid penalty for that.”

He also said that coach Waqar Younus was doing an excellent job and there was need to replace him.

“The credit that has gone to the team for reaching the semi final must also go to the coach. When a team doesn’t too well, the team management are criticized but when the team are doing well, the credit for that success must first go to the players then to the coach and then to the selection committee as they chose the right team,” said Iqbal.

“Regarding Waqar, he should continue although I am not too sure having two coaches who are specifically bowling oriented is a good idea. Obviously, Waqar is the all round or head coach but he is primarily a bowler so it would be nice to have instead of another bowling coach [Aqib], they should have a specialist batting and a fielding coach - that is what is required,” Iqbal added.

He said coaching is a specialized position, a post that you needed to be qualified for.

He also said that the exclusion of Pakistani cricketers from the Indian Premier League (IPL) had nothing to do with cricket.

“I am absolutely sure that many Indians and franchises would like to have these brilliant cricketers - the Pakistani cricketers in the Afridis, the Abdul Razzaqs and the Umar Guls and Umar Akmal. The problem is in the availability of players. In that you can bracket the security concern, availability due to International commitments. For all those reasons they have been excluded,” he said. (ANI)