omission<\/a> of former captain Babar Azam, though Hesson avoided terming it a dropping and instead emphasised the opportunity for new players.<\/p>\n\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone particularly was dropped,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a good chance for us to look at younger talent. The international calendar rarely provides opportunities to give several promising players exposure at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the newcomers, Hesson highlighted the performances of Sahibzada Farhan, who recently impressed in the T20 World Cup, and Shamyl Hussain, the leading run-scorer in last season\u2019s first-class competition who also performed strongly in List A cricket and for the Shaheens.<\/p>\n
He also pointed to Maaz Sadaqat as another player who has been on the fringes of selection and now has an opportunity to prove his ability at the international level.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are players who have been performing consistently in domestic cricket and have been waiting for their opportunity,\u201d Hesson said. \u201cThis series provides them a platform to show what they can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pakistan enter the series with confidence after convincing victories in their last two ODI series, with Hesson praising the team\u2019s recent performances.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur last two one-day series were exceptional. We played solid cricket and the top order produced important runs, which always helps in this format,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Pakistan will face Bangladesh in the first ODI on Wednesday, with the remaining matches scheduled for March 13 and 15.<\/p>\n
All three games will be played at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.<\/p>\n
Hesson, who had criticised the surface at the venue during Pakistan\u2019s T20I tour last year, said the pitch now appeared to be in much better condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt certainly looks a far better pitch with better coverage than it has been,\u201d he said. \u201cEarlier the wicket here hadn\u2019t been great for a while, but even during the BPL we saw better surfaces.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that the improved pitch should offer a balanced contest between bat and ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like there is more grass cover and hopefully it will provide a genuine contest. Both teams want to play on good cricket wickets and be challenged, and at the moment it looks like it could be that sort of surface.\u201d<\/p>\n
Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PAKISTAN captain Shaheen Shah Afridi in action during a training session at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Monday.\u2014Courtesy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-467492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}