Mohammad Hafeez joins Bangladesh Premier League
Pic: Collected
|| CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh Premier League’s franchise Rajshahi Kings said on Thursday that they have signed Pakistani opener Mohammad Hafeez for the upcoming edition of BPL.
According to Kings official, Hafeez will be available for five matches from the beginning of BPL as he is expected to join Pakistan squad for the ODI series against South Africa.
''We have signed Hafeez as we needed a right-handed batsman at the top and we are confident that his vast experience will be invaluable for us,’’ Kings chief executive Tahmeed Haq told Cricbuzz.
‘’We are expecting to have him for the first five matches as later he will join the Pakistan squad for the series against South Africa,’’ he added.
BPL is slated to start from January 5 with Rangpur Riders taking Chittagong Kings in the opening game followed while Dhaka Dynamites will lock horns with Rajshahi Kings in the other game of the opening day.
Hafeez will feature for the first time in BPL as last year he decided to skip BPL after being picked by Comilla Victorians as he decided to work on his faulty bowling action as ICC suspended him during Pakistan’s third ODI’s against Sri Lanka in November 2017.
Kings top order is comprised with Soumya Sarkar, Shahriar Nafees, Mominul Haque, Fazle Rabbi and Jakir Hasan and with all of them being left-handed batsman the franchise seemed to have gone for the right-handed opener.
Mohammad Hafeez played 252 T20 matches so far and scored 5317 runs with a strike rate of 122.59 that is believed to be a major reason for Kings to go after him.
Hafeez made his Test debut against Bangladesh in Karachi in 2003. In his 55-match-long career, the right-handed opener accumulated 3,638 runs thus far at an average of 38.29, scoring 10 centuries and 12 fifties. His off-spin accounted for 53 wickets at 34.05 runs apiece. But, it was his economy of 2.66 and his ability to regularly strike against the left-handed batsmen that made him a vital cog in Pakistan's bowling unit. However, constant bans, due to suspect action, never allowed him to flourish as a bowler.
