For those who worry about the declining relevance of international cricket to the modern player, the glut of retirement U-turns in the past week will have come as a welcome boost. Wanindu Hasaranga, Imad Wasim and Mohammad Amir are all able to make a healthy living playing in franchise and other domestic cricket, and have all made themselves available again for their countries in one of the formats.

Each unretirement comes with its own narrative. Hasaranga’s, in Tests, deserves its own docuseries. Is this a canny piece of loophole exploitation, avoiding a T20 World Cup ban by ensuring a suspension applies to games he wouldn’t have played anyway, or a player falling back in love with the longest format?

Imad’s feels the most necessary. Before his retirement, his persistent underuse by Pakistan felt odd, with similar but inferior players preferred to him, and the frustration that prompted his decision was understandable. His numbers have been consistently excellent, but it was three consecutive Player of the Match performances in Islamabad United’s three knockout games on the way to the PSL 2024 title that really pressed home his case. Here was a player capable of rising to the big occasion because he was totally unfazed by it.

“If you’re telling me there’s a better option than him, a utility player with experience and big-match temperament then I want to see him,” Mark Butcher said on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast. Clearly, no such option was available, and so the PCB persuaded Imad to come back to the fold for one last job. Expect him to slot straight back into the XI.

In some ways, Amir’s return is similar. Like Imad, he has excelled in T20 cricket in recent years. Coming a day after Imad’s announcement, he also revealed “positive discussions” from the PCB had been had. Given that, when he retired four years ago, he spoke of being “mental [sic] tortured” at the hands of the team management, these must have been needed, and as recently as November last year he rejected an offer of conciliatory talks from Mohammad Hafeez, Pakistan’s previous team director. But unlike Imad, it is not immediately clear how exactly Amir slots straight into Pakistan’s first XI.

Mohammad Amir has reversed his international retirement, citing “positive discussions” with the Pakistan Cricket Board.

Should he come straight back into their T20I first XI?https://t.co/YRacUGNdcX

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) March 24, 2024

Pakistan’s T20I side is exciting but curious, packed full of talent but also lopsided in several ways. In Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, they possess perhaps the two most consistent batters in T20 history, but they also have no one else with any sort of international record to speak of.

They have three potent pace bowlers, in Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah and Shaheen Shah Afridi, who rank among the finest in the format, but of whom only the latter is anywhere close to all-rounder status. And they have several high-class spin-bowling all-rounders, with Imad joined by Shadab Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, and perhaps Saim Ayub, if his newly developed off-spin proves as useful in T20Is as it did in the PSL.

Given all this, it can be hard to see where Amir fits in. If those six players all play, Pakistan should have 20 overs seen off comfortably. And even if Shadab bats in the middle order, as he now does routinely and successfully for Islamabad United, the slot opened up lower down might be better filled by someone who can bat. That is Pakistan’s greatest concern, and a batting line-up as deep as possible could be the key to unlocking Babar and Rizwan’s aggression up top.

Even if Pakistan do decide to pick four out-and-out quicks – a tantalising proposition from a spectator’s perspective – the roles of each could be hard to nail down. While Rauf, a middle-over enforcer, complements any of the other two, Naseem, Amir and Shaheen are all new-ball specialists. Shaheen has taken the new ball in 90 percent of his T20 appearances, Naseem in 85 percent, and Amir in 87 percent. Picking all four quicks would mean asking one to do a job with which they are unfamiliar.

As a back-up, Amir would be an upgrade on Pakistan’s other options, and if all they are doing is improving their squad depth in encouraging him to return, it’s a prudent move. They know the effect of ill-timed injuries all too well, with Shaheen injuring his knee at just the wrong time in the 2022 T20 World Cup final, and Naseem’s pre-tournament injury a decisive factor in Pakistan’s poor 2023 World Cup performance.

But would Amir have really agreed to come back just to warm the bench? Would the message that he would likely make the squad, but that he was a way from the first XI, amount to “positive discussions” in his view?

Is it, in fact, possible that one of the two new-ball specialists might not be as secure as assumed? Amir hasn’t just been solid since retiring from international cricket, he’s been exceptional, not least in the Caribbean, where the upcoming T20 World Cup will be held. Across the last three CPL seasons, he has 43 wickets, an average under 15 and an economy under 6.5. Overall, his T20 numbers are barely distinguishable from Shaheen’s and Naseem’s. Since Amir’s last T20I, he averages 23.4 with an economy of 7.4, Shaheen 22 with an economy of 7.8, and Naseem 27 with an economy of 7.7. Naseem’s lack of potency might make him seem the candidate to sit out, but he is a right-armer, whereas Amir and Shaheen are both lefties.

Is it even possible that Shaheen might not be fully assured of a spot? He is the captain, but was not offered assurances in a recent press conference that he would be retained in the role, and his stock has dropped after Lahore Qalandars finished in last place in PSL 2024, with one win all season. It seems unthinkable, but so did an Amir comeback until a few days ago.

At least Pakistan do have the time to work things out. New Zealand visit next month for five T20Is, then Pakistan travel to England for four more short-form games. Perhaps Amir has been assured of a fair crack, but nothing more, with a decision to be made over who takes the new ball for the World Cup. If so, those games, which had previously seemed little more than World Cup warm-ups, have taken on an all-new importance and intrigue.

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