Pakistan have no dearth of talents, says Waqar Younis

Image Credits: Twitter/@waqyounis99

Pakistan bowling coach Waqar Younis hailed the young talents and said that the team got a bunch of youngsters in the team who can become a force in near future.

"It has to be the chance to work with some excellent young fast-bowlers. Who wouldn`t want to work with Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain and some of the more established bowlers like Hassan Ali and Faheem Ashraf? I have got a bunch of guys who I feel can be a force. If you look around the world, the most successful teams are the ones who have a group of pace-bowlers across all formats and who have specialists across all three formats," website PakPassion quoted Younis as saying.

"I feel that if I can help these youngsters and guide them then that will be satisfying for me, the Board and will be of benefit to these young bowlers," he added.

Pakistan have a pace bowling attack consisting of Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain, Hassan Ali and Faheem Ashraf. Naseem recently became the youngest cricketer to Test debut in Australia and grabbed many eyeballs with his talent.

Shaheen is another youngster with great potential as he became took his first five-wicket haul in Test cricket against Sri Lanka in Karachi Test.

Praising the 19-year-old seamer, Younis said he is `maturing very quickly`.

"Shaheen is maturing very quickly, he likes to learn and is keen to perform and I`m really pleased with how he is progressing as a bowler," Waqar said.

"I have spoken with the PCB hierarchy about players` finances and managing their workloads as each Test match counts towards the World Test Championship and we have to manage Shaheen`s and the other pacers workloads. I am sure the Board is working on this and they will come up with some sort of agreement to help and work with the players," he added.

When asked is their more fast bowlers in the pipeline, Waqar said, "Ehsan Adil is one bowler that I am keeping a close eye on and he is someone who has been bowling well this season, can bat and is a handy fielder too. I have already mentioned some of the group of pace-bowlers we have at our disposal and in addition, Usman Khan Shinwari is an impressive bowler."

"What I am trying to do is to have this group of pace-bowlers and to keep a very close eye on this batch and monitor their progress very closely. We are planning to have another camp for pace-bowlers ahead of the series against Bangladesh and that will also give us another opportunity to look at the pace-bowlers," he added.

After successfully hosting the Test series against Sri Lanka and winning it by 1-0, Waqar termed Pakistan as a safe cricketing nation.

"Pakistan is a safe place and anyone who is saying it`s not a safe place is fooling themselves. We`ve just had an excellent series against Sri Lanka, with some good crowds and a wonderful and hard-fought Test match played in Karachi. People love cricket in Pakistan and what else does any country want us to do to show that it is safe here? The Sri Lankan players were out and about shopping and going out for dinners and they were all very happy in Pakistan," Waqar said.