The Hundred has opened up new avenues of attacking cricket for players all across the globe and the kind of aggression that has been introduced after its preamble is taking over the sport. It is a new form of franchise tournament and the world has accepted it well. Talking about new forms of the game and new faces, Mike Hussey, the new coach for Welsh Fire who have mainly been at the receiving end of some serious whacking, believes that the introduction of the fiery Pakistani fast bowling duo, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf can revamp the team and that too for good.
However, there is a major challenge about the fact whether they will be available throughout the tournament due to their international assignments. It isn’t the Pakistani duo who have struggled for their availability only but other international players have also challenged to be regulars considering the international assignments and the Caribbean Premier League that happens during that time of the year.
Here is what Mike Hussey had to say after taking over the reins as a coach
Hussey who has arrived as Gary Kirsten’s replacement, said, “We’ve been told that they’re available up to about the 20th. I think that’s about seven games, and there’s a chance that the series they’ve got against Afghanistan may be called off as well. It’s a bit of a gamble, but if that is the case, it’d be a huge win for us to have them for the whole season, which would be amazing for us.”
He further added, “They are big stars, and they’re match-winners as well. The first seven games is a fair chunk of the tournament. If they can come in and have a huge impact and win us a few games, and get us right up there, then that will help build some confidence and belief. And then there’s still some quality performers out there that we can attract as suitable replacements.”
Hussey also said, “The gamble is, we know we’ve got them for seven games at this stage, but it could also be the whole tournament which would be a huge pay-off for us. Obviously they are both world-class performers and have performed on the biggest stage in the past, so hopefully they can have a big impact for us.”
Talking about the collective brilliance of the duo, he said, “It’s great that we’ve got them as a pair. So they’ve got a bit of camaraderie off the field and both have a buddy there as well. I think that’s going to hopefully help them settle in nicely.”
Mike Hussey explains why Tom Abell can be explosive as a captain
Hussey also shed some light on Tom Abell’s selection as the captain, stating, “I obviously did a lot of background [work] and got a lot of information from a lot of different sources and the information I got was that he sounds like an outstanding character and a really good leader, which is something that we identified that we really wanted this season.” He concluded by saying, “He really respected Birmingham so much and they’d stood by him when he was injured in a previous season, and so he was very reluctant to leave them, to be honest. We had to work extremely hard to help him see the vision of what we had in place, and what we would hopefully create over the next few years, and that we saw him as a huge part of that, particularly being the leader of the team.”
