By Megha Mallick,News18

Copyright news18

Former Pakistan pacer Waqar Younis has said that Saim Ayub should be benched and even though he is the future of the country’s cricket, his form is lowering his confidence and he just can’t find a way to get out of the vicious cycle. Ayub has been Pakistan’s worst batter in the Asia Cup.
Against Bangladesh, Ayub recorded his fourth duck of the tournament in five innings. His only runs came against arch-rivals India in the Super 4s, scoring 21 off 17 deliveries.
Despite taking six wickets before the Bangladesh match, Ayub has struggled with the bat. Younis believes he should be dropped from the playing XI to regain his batting form.
“I said it after the second duck, I said that this guy needs to be benched. It isn’t that he is not talented; he is very talented. I think he is the future of Pakistan cricket. But sometimes when things aren’t going right for you, you just keep going in the shell, keep going down and down and that is what’s happening here with him,” Younis said while speaking on Sony Sports.
“His body language was poor this afternoon when he walked onto the field. You know, he (Ayub) is a youngster, you really need to look after them sometimes, by just not playing them sometimes,” Younis added.
On Thursday, Ayub was dismissed attempting to slog Mahedi Hasan’s fuller ball over the infield. But he went on to dismiss Nurul Hasan and Bangladesh skipper Jaker Ali.
The most striking aspect was that none of the Bangladesh batters seemed to know how to tackle the spin trio of Ayub, slow left-armer Mohammed Nawaz and wrist-spinner Abrar Ahmed.
Star Bangladesh allrounder Shamim Hossain played a horrible flat-batted reverse shot off a Shaheen Shah Afridi back-of-the-hand slower delivery in his final over and Bangladesh had no opportunity of scoring 39 in three overs.