The new white ball coach of Team Pakistan, Mike Hesson, clarified his views about Babar Azam and Shaheen Afridi. Both cricketers were once considered among the brightest talents of cricket but are now out from the national team's T20 setup. As of now, Babar and Afridi are not a part of the T20I squad. But Mike did not want to rule out any possibilities of their comeback in the Green in the shortest format of the game. Without those two stars, Pakistan whitewashed Bangladesh 3-0 on home soil at the start of last month.

The head coach of Pakistan suggested Babar and Shaheen are both still heavily in his long-term plans for next year's T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka, and the pair are currently in Karachi taking part in a training camp alongside their teammates that will travel to Bangladesh later this month for a three-match T20I series in Mirpur. Mike put a focus on strike rate, an important element in the T20 format, which Babar lacks. But the coach does not want to focus only on the strike rate but on creating a combination in the top order. 

"There's a good reason why our ranking in T20 cricket is as low as it is: because our strike rates from a batting point of view are not high enough. We certainly made some shifts in that last series to play a more expansive game of cricket and probably catch up with the rest of the world, as that is the way the modern game is. Babar is one of many who have the ability to make those improvements," Mike Hesson said. "It's not just a matter of going from 125 to 150; it's a matter of increasing what you can offer because we're no doubt often 30-40 runs short with the bat. So, we need to find a way of getting that."

Read More: WATCH: Surya Kumar Yadav wishes to play this tennis shot in a cricket match

His views over Afridi

The former Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) coach is also curious to work with Shaheen Afridi too. He is expecting much better performance from the left-handed pacer. 

"Shaheen Shah Afridi is a world-class player. There's no doubt that we've identified some areas that Shaheen needs to work on, as does every player at this camp," the coach said.