Multan Sultans team manager Nadeem Khan on Monday said "older" players were the reason for the team's dismal performance in Pakistan Super League's (PSL) third edition.
Speaking to DawnNewsTV upon arrival at Karachi airport, Nadeem Khan said, "The average age of our players was the highest if compared to other PSL teams, and some of them also suffered injuries because of the hectic schedule that the team had.”
Being the newest addition to the roster, Sultan had no other option but to pick their first 10 players from the released ones and they also had the last pick in all categories during players draft.
“All other teams retained their best 10 players and we had to take our pick from the players released by other teams, so we had fewer choices," the manager explained while further reasons for Sultan's failure to qualify for the playoffs.
"We are not blaming anyone because we accepted things as they were, but those were the reasons that we were not able to make the best squad,” he told DawnNewsTV.
"Another reason," Nadeem said, "is that Sultans’ match schedule was the toughest among all."
"We got a good start but as we played matches in quick succession some of our players got tired and suffered injured, thus we failed to keep the momentum going,” Nadeem explained.
Nadeem also said that not being able to give Shan Masood a chance was also unfortunate of the part of Sultans.
“On the other hand, although Ahmad Shahzad had a low strike rate, his opening partnership was going fine with Kumar Sangakkara. The proof of this lies in the fact that we still have the record of highest opening-wicket partnership in this season," said Nadeem.
"He [Masood] is an amazing player but I would say that he was a little unfortunate,” he said.