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Prior to their second T20I against West Indies on Saturday, the Pakistan side received a big setback as cricketer Azam Khan was hit on the head while batting in the nets. The 22-year-old was rushed to the hospital for a CT scan, as is being conveyed by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). Although the right-handed batter was batting with his helmet on and had used all other safety equipment, the ball still managed to find a way to hit him on the head.
As per the latest update, the doctors have analysed the CT scan report of Azam and recommended a 24-hour observation period for him. His next reassessment is scheduled on Monday. Consequently, Azam has been ruled out of at least the next two games.
The four-match T20I series between West Indies and Pakistan did commence on July 28 but rain abandoned the match after just nine overs were bowled. With this, the series has become a three-match bilateral arrangement and with the T20 World Cup scheduled to take place later this year, the teams would look to make the most of this opportunity.
Sohaib Maqsood and Mohammad Hasnain were likely to get opportunities in these matches
While the Pakistan team management was criticised on their tour of England for not giving enough game time to players like Azam Khan, Sohaib Maqsood, and Mohammad Hasnain, captain Babar Azam, in an address to the media said that he is looking to try these players out during the matches against West Indies.
"We did not get a lot of chances to try different combinations during the series against England. We will now try different combinations. We will try to learn from our mistakes. We will give confidence to our players. We have also worked on our fielding. Hopefully, we will see better results," Babar mentioned in this virtual press conference.
Notably, West Indies are the defending world champions in this format and they happen to be the only team in the world to have won more than one world cup of this form of the game. In this case, if the likes of Azam, Hasnain, and Maqsood perform well against them, there is no reason why the management won't consider them for a place in the squad for the world event scheduled to happen in the United Arab Emirates.