Re: Pakistan V England/ Pakistani squad announced.
Shoaib Malik is a very talented and hardworking player who has improved tremendously in the last couple of years. But for some reason I am still not comfortable with him playing as a test opener. Yes he can be a regular opener in ODI's.
After a very long time we have seen a player who truly has got the test match temperament. Along with stroke players like inzi and yousuf who still will have a 70% strike rate in a test innings, i would like to have a player like asim kamal who can just hold one end and play a typical test innings. I don't think dropping him off is a good idea from the playing 11.
I have said earlier as well that we have middle order line up filled with younis, yousuf, inzi and kamal and therefore there is no place for talents like faisal iqbal or hasan raza. Why not than try one of them as opener with salman butt specially when we have a crisis going on for the opening pair and still have not yet decided on our test openers. Yes fasial and hasan are not natural openers but in compettive cricket you have to be flexible enough to play at any position. If they can't be sent as an opener than other alternative is to send younis as an opener with butt and play one of them as a middle order batsman.