Shahnawaz Dahani is reportedly in trouble with the Pakistan Cricket Board after criticising his snub from the Asia Cup squad on social media.
Dahani last played an ODI for Pakistan in June 2022 and missed the cut for the Asia Cup squad despite performing consistently in domestic cricket. He picked up 17 wickets at an average of 19.82 in the 2022/23 Pakistan One Day Cup in seven games and also fared well in Pakistan Shaheen’s tour to Zimbabwe this year, where he scalped 13 wickets. He also breathed fire in the Emerging Asia Cup with a five-for against Nepal.
Dahani, who has a List A average of 24.35, picking 56 wickets in 31 games, was left out of the squad for the Asia Cup, as the Inzamam-ul-Haq-led selection committee picked Naseem Shah, Faheem Ashraf, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Wasim Jr and Shaheen Afridi as the quicks. He expressed his disappointment on Twitter, where he questioned the cricket analysts for staying silent on his absence despite good returns, even correcting former Pakistan cricketer Rashid Latif after he left him out from a chart that looked at how Pakistan fast bowlers have fared recently.
On Thursday (August 10), Latif shared a screenshot of the List A statistics of a few Pakistan quicks who have made the Asia Cup squad and also added Zaman Khan, who missed out. Dahani, upon noticing his name missing from the screenshot, commented: “Seems as if Dahani is not a Pakistani pacer”, and added an image of his career stats along with it.
Latif accepted his mistake of ignoring Dahani, and replied, “My mistake Dahani. I will make now..”
In another tweet, Dahani continued to rail against the lack of scrutiny. “Not even a single journalist or cricket analyst even dared to ask questions or show these stats to selectors. #ripsportsjournalim”
Both tweets by Dahani have now been deleted amid reports that PCB’s legal team is likely to look into the matter and take action against the player, who is currently representing Dambulla Aura in the Lanka Premier League.
Dahani has played two ODIs and 11 T20Is for Pakistan, and was a part of the 2022 Asia Cup squad, which was played in the T20I format.
