Firing the first salvo ahead of high-profile Asia Cup clash against arch-rival India, Pakistan head coach Mike Hesson on Thursday termed left-arm spinner Mohammed Nawaz as “best spinner in world cricket”.
Nawaz, who recently got a five-for against Afghanistan in the tri-nation T20 final at Sharjah, will headline Pakistan’s spin department alongside wrist spinners Sufiyan Muqeem and Abrar Ahmed.
“When you have got wrist spinners like that, it doesn’t really matter about the surface as much. The beauty of our side is we’ve got five spinners. We’ve got Mohamed Nawaz, who’s the best spin bowler in the world at the moment, and he’s been ranked that way over the last six months since he’s come back on the side,” Hesson said ahead of Pakistan’s game against Oman.
However, as per the latest ICC T20I rankings, Nawaz is ranked 30.
“Obviously, we have Abrar and Sufiyan. Saim Ayub is now in the top 10 all-rounders in the world,” another Hesson’s claim that remains unfounded.
“Salman Ali Agha has hardly bowled, and he’s also the Test spinner for Pakistan. So, we’ve got a lot of spin bowling options, if we think conditions suit that.
“If we don’t, we have got five pacers as well who allow us to either go for airspeed or change of pace or reverse swing, depending on what we think the surface will provide,” the coach said.
Hesson wasn’t amused when asked if Pakistani batters are able to read the wrist spinners out of their hands.
“We have played against probably the best wrist-spin attack in the world (Afghanistan) on a surface that has spun square, and we managed to score 70 more than our opposition, so I’m not quite sure where that’s come from,” he said.
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But a line-up comprising Saim Ayub, Sahibzada Farhan, Salman Ali Agha, Hasan Nawaz and Muhammad Harris is a developing one.
“There are a number of players who, on their day, can win you the game, but they don’t get as many good days as you’d like at the moment, and I think that’s very fair.
“The thing for us, though, is we’re more interested in the sum of the parts as a batting group, and in every game in Sharjah, we were probably 20 above par,” he said.
He spoke about the tri-series final where Pakistan won by 75 runs on a difficult track.
“Even in the final, 120 was plenty on that pitch and we got 140, and anyone watching that game would have been well aware of that as the ball was stopping and spinning, so the fact we scrapped 140, you’re never going to play with fluency on those types of surfaces,” he added.
“We also got 200, we got 180, and we had 150 chasing, which was probably our poorest performance. Outside of that, as a batting unit, we’ve got the job done.
“Would we like every one of them to be in form at the same time? Of course we would. It certainly looks like it’s going to be a pretty good pitch, is for a few of those guys to find some form and play in innings that we don’t have to play.” Hesson said.
Published on Sep 11, 2025
