Pakistan’s Test cricket team is going through a very bad period these days. In the current year Pakistan made dead pitches against Australia, yet we lost the series. Won one Test in Sri Lanka but then lost the second to level the series, even though we faced a weak Sri Lankan team.
Today, the Test series against England is happening, the condition of the Pakistani team is thin. We lost the first test, Pakistani bowlers were beaten a lot, England made a new world record by scoring 500 runs in one day.
Things are looking bad in the second test as well and Pakistan is heading for another defeat, unless a miracle happens, this test and the whole series will be lost. There is a fear that Pakistan won’t get a clean sweep somewhere in their home ground after losing all three Tests.
After losing each series, the captain and the coach keep saying that we have gained experience from this series, and success will come in the next series. After some time the “experience” of losing another series is gained. There are a few reasons for this poor performance. It is important to discuss them because if the underlying issues are not resolved, we will continue to lose.
Ignoring Test cricket
It is a fact that the Pakistan Cricket Board and management have not made Test cricket their priority. There are two reasons for this, one is the presence of a lucrative and glamorized tournament like PSL in the T20 format, and the other is the excess of ODI cricket and now T20 cricket in the last few years. Pakistan hardly gets two to three Test series in a year, that too mostly two or seven Test matches. It has been a long time since a five-Test series was played. The cricket board also mostly focuses on white ball cricket. Classical cricket which is considered as the format known worldwide has not been given any attention. The result is in front.
Not developing specialized test players
Unlike white ball (ODI, T20) cricket, test match (red ball) cricket has its own requirements and there is a dire need for specialist players. In T20, a bowler has to bowl only four overs, many times even part-time spinners do it well. A bowler can bowl a maximum of ten overs in an ODI. Part-time bowlers also do some work there. Four overs, six overs and that’s it.
Test cricket is a five-day game, there are about ninety overs to be played in a day, if there are four bowlers in the team, the fast bowler will play fifteen to twenty overs while the spinner will play twenty-five or thirty overs. Many times a team’s innings lasts for two days. Thus, the spin bowlers have to bowl up to forty-fifty overs. The same is the case with batting, if the batter (batsman) does not have the ability to stay on the wicket for twenty hours, then he will fail in Test cricket, while in white ball cricket, the one who scores thirty to thirty-five runs on fifteen-twenty balls is successful.
One of Pakistan’s problems is that most of their bowlers play white ball cricket and are successful there. Boys rarely come to the red ball format and those who come cannot maintain their form throughout the year. Like Haris Roof has been a successful bowler in white ball cricket for three to four years while in Test cricket he played his first Test last week.
Naseem Shah also played less Test cricket, Wasim Jr. has not played a single Test yet. Shadab Khan is a very successful white ball player, but he got only half a chance in Tests. Shaheen Shah was successful in both white ball and red ball, but perhaps due to the same workload, he also became unfit.
Lack of money in Test cricket
Money is the main reason to switch to white ball cricket, especially T20. Various countries around the world conduct T20 leagues, Pakistani players are also included in them. A two-three-week-to-a-month game earns them a good income, around one to two crore rupees. PSL, which is our local league, lasts for a month, and the main Pakistani players who play in it get one hundred thousand dollars, which means around two hundred and twenty crores.
There are no leagues in the Test cricket format and income can only be earned by being in the national Test team. It’s good too, but nothing compared to playing T20 leagues. Young players try to make a place in PSL by playing well and perform there to play in foreign leagues. There is a need for power hitters or batsmen in T20. Test cricket, however, requires technically sound batsmen.
Disappointing performance of the High-Performance Center
The Pakistan Cricket Board had built a high-performance center at the National Cricket Academy, announcing that young players would be groomed. For this purpose, Muhammad Yusuf was made the batting coach and Saqlain Mushtaq was made the CEO of the Performance Center. A bowling coach was also hired. Now the situation is that Yusuf and Saqlain are coaching the national team.
The poor are stuck in the domestic, pushing themselves. If they are made, they are made, otherwise, they are finished. Pakistan lacks good spinners, today if Shadab Khan is unfit, there is no good leg spin all rounder in the white ball. Similarly, when Yasir Shah’s form ended, there was no leg-spinner in the team, and suddenly a mystery spinner came in the form of Abrar, otherwise, the board did not prepare for him.
Lack of aggressive and professional manner
The main reason for the continuous defeat and poor performance of the Pakistani Test team today is the lack of aggressive and professional style. Pakistan’s team needs an aggressive captain. More than that, they need a professional coach with an aggressive approach. One who ruthlessly sets aside all manners and morals to build teams on hundred percent merit, groom them and instill the aggression that is an integral part of modern cricket.
Unfortunately, both the current coaches of the Pakistan team, Mohammad Yousuf and Saqlain Mushtaq, are overly soft, polite and moral figures. Instead of feeding the team on 100% merit, they are in the process of maintaining status. For example in Pindi Test, spinner Abrar Ahmed was the best choice, Abrar performed exceptionally in the domestic, and his performance is very good in Pindi stadium.
The coach and management fed Zahid Mahmood instead of Abrar, thinking that since Zahid has been with the team for a year, his number should come first. Oh brother, you are not taking him to a hotel to feed him, you are feeding him a test against a dangerous team like England. See who is the better bowler between Zahid Mahmood and Abrar Ahmed? That’s all it takes.
Dependence on half-baked players
One of the main reasons for the failures of the Pakistani Test team is to feed half-hearted players in the name of all-rounders instead of feeding specialist players. Imran Khan used to call him Rilo Katta. For example, Muhammad Nawaz was inducted as an all-rounder in the Multan Test. This is the case with Faheem Ashraf. He is an all-rounder, but taking wickets as a bowler is not enough for him now. What support will he get from scoring twenty-five runs in batting?
Zahid Mahmood is also not a test format leg spinner. His loss was that the English team took Pakistan ahead. In Multan, if Abrar had not performed exceptionally well, the Pindi match would have been replayed. Zahid Mehmood, Muhammad Ali, Nawaz, Faheem Ashraf do not have enough ability to stop the English batsmen from scoring runs quickly.
The gist of this whole debate is that the Pakistani team needs a good offensive-minded foreign coach. One who puts aside shyness takes bold decisions and feeds the specialist players available to them.
