Ahead of their must win clash against South Africa at Edgbaston tomorrow, the Pakistan Cricket team have called the 25 year old Rumman Raees for the injured Wahab Riaz who was ruled out of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 due to ankle injury that he suffered during the match against India.
Pakistan lost the first match against India by a massive 124 runs margin. India scored 319 in 48 overs while Pakistan were bowled out for 164 in 33.4 overs.
Wahab Riaz conceded the most runs in Champions Trophy history by giving 87 runs in 8.4 overs and left the field. He did not come to bat. Pakistan won the toss but due to poor fielding, the abilty to rotate strike cost them the match. It is a big blow for Pakistan to lose such a top quality bowler after such a disappointing outing against arch-rivals India. He will not play cricket for two weeks and has been sent to Lahore for treatment.
Rumman Raees has played two T20 matches for Pakistan against West Indies in 2016 taking only 1 wicket. In the 42 first class matches he has played so far, Raees has taken 123 wickets with the best figures of 7/31 in an innings, also took part in 42 List A matches taking 64 wickets with best figures of 4/48.
In the recently Pakistan Super League held this year, Raees was the third highest wicket taker. He played for Islamabad United. The Pakistan skipper Sarfarz Ahmed said that Junaid Khan who has been with the squad will be included in the playing XI for tomorrow’s match against South Africa. The PCB discussed two replacements for Wahab Riaz and they decided to go with Raees because of his skills to bowl in death overs and having better strike rate in ODI cricket.
Pakistan takes on South Africa in a day night affair. If Pakistan loses then the tournament will be over. They need to perform much better against a strong South African side who dominated Sri Lanka to win the match by 96 runs.
They need to play well as a unit and show much better aggression that they are lacking in ODI cricket. South Africa are the top ranked team in ODI cricket while Pakistan are 8th ranked. It promises to be an exciting clash between one of the strongest contender and the unpredictable.
