Pakistan A or Pakistan Shaheens replicated Sri Lanka's feat of successfully winning the Emerging Teams Asia Cup for the second time in a row as they beat India A in the final of the 2023 edition by 128 runs in Colombo on Sunday, July 23. While there is no age limit, however, the BCCI still followed the Under-23 rule with all the 15 players in the squad having no international experience getting selected for the tournament. The same argument caught fire after India's win with a few of Pakistani players having already played international cricket, including skipper Mohammad Haris.
Haris has now given an apt response to the critics while blasting them as he said that he didn't ask India to send youngsters labelling them as 'little kids' while mentioning that the players of the Yash Dhull-led side have all played IPL and have a combined experience of over 250 games.
"People are saying that Pakistan sent a team with many seniors. We did not ask them to send little kids to the tournament. They say that we had international experience in our team. How many international matches have we played? Saim has played 5, I have played 6 and that too all T20Is. Kamran Ghulam has played just one match while Tayyab Tahir has played three matches," Haris said.
Those guys (Indian players) have played 260 IPL matches. IPL is not a small league, it's been going on for more than 15 years," Haris was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan on a Podcast.
The likes of Mohammad Haris, Saim Ayub, Mohammad Wasim Jr and Shahnawaz Dahani were a few of the more experienced players in the Pakistan A squad. India A managed to win the group-stage match between the two sides but Pakistan A proved to be too strong in the summit clash as they posted a huge score of 352 runs on the board and it was eventually too much for the Men in Blue to chase as the failed on the final hurdle.
