The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief Mohsin Naqvi refused to mince words when asked about his opinion on the team’s harrowing 10-wicket defeat against Bangladesh in the Rawalpindi Test. It was the first time that Pakistan suffered a defeat at the hands of Bangladesh in the longest format of the game, sending a shockwave across the nation. Be it skipper Shan Masood‘s captaincy, team selection, performances of top batters like Baba Azam, or inability of pacers like Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, etc. to deliver with the ball, many factors contributed to Pakistan’s embarrassing loss on Sunday.
Some of the former Pakistan cricketers even criticised selectors for not picking talented players from the domestic pool. However, PCB boss Naqvi feels that there aren’t many quality players in Pakistan’s domestic pool to pick from.
“It was a very disappointing loss,” Naqvi was quoted as saying by Associated Press on Monday, a day after Bangladesh’s embarrassing defeat. “The problem is the selection committee has no pool to turn to.”
Naqvi had promised that a “surgery” would be done after Pakistan’s early elimination from the T20 World Cup 2024 but the same problems cropped up as the team took on Bangladesh at home in the first Test. While the PCB chief remains keen to find a solution, he admitted there aren’t many quality players to choose from.
“We want to fix our problems,” Naqvi said, “but when we look at how to resolve them, we don’t have any solid data or (elite) players pool which we can draw from.”
After the end of the first match, Pakistan captain Shan Masood accepted that mistakes were made by him and the team.
“Never to make an excuse, it (the pitch) didn’t play the way we thought it would. Also the weather had been around in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, it rained around 8-9 days before the first day of play. Firstly looking at the pitch, we expected it to do a bit more. With three pace bowlers, they were gonna be pushed to the limit. At the end of the day, we got it wrong,” he had said.
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