From Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, to the likes of Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul and Mohammad Amir, Pakistan cricket has produced some of the most breathtaking talents when it comes to the pace department in the captivating game.
In modern-day cricket, the golden legacy of fast bowling is carried by Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah. Shaheen has already impressed everyone with his maiden World Cup appearance last year in England and Wales.
Naseem, on the other hand, made his debut during Pakistan’s unremarkable tour of Australia in late 2019. However, he bounced back by becoming the youngest bowler to claim a Test hat-trick (16 years, 359 days) during a match against Bangladesh early this year.
In a recent interaction with Cricingif, Naseem was asked to name his dream hat-trick victims. The 17-year-old first picked genius Aussie batsman Steve Smith. The former Australia captain, recently leapfrogged his Indian counterpart Virat Kohli to regain the top spot in ICC Test batsmen rankings. Smith has so far played 73 Tests, 125 ODIs and 39 T20Is for Australia, in which the Sydney-born cricketer has amassed 7227, 4162, and 681 runs, respectively.
For the second option, Naseem went with current England Test captain Joe Root. The Yorkshire batsman has so far played 92 Tests, 146 ODIs and 32 T20Is for England. He has accumulated 7599 runs in red-ball cricket, while 5922 runs in ODIs. In the shortest format, Root has 893 runs to his name.
Naseem picked Team India’s destructive opener, Rohit Sharma, as his third choice. The ‘Hitman’ has appeared in 32 Tests, 224 ODIs and 108 T20Is. Rohit has amassed 2141 runs in the longest format, 9115 in ODIs. When it comes to T20Is, Rohit has 2773 runs to his name.
Interestingly, Naseem didn’t pick current India skipper Kohli saying that he doesn’t get intimidated by the run-machine.
“I hope that I can bowl well against India when that chance comes by and won’t let our fans down. As for Virat Kohli, I respect him but don’t fear him,” said Naseem.
