I am livid at the awful team selections and strategies used but one aspect has been overlooked in the discussion of this series. When you lose two key players and are transitioning into a new era, you need to be playing as much cricket as possible to settle on a new combination. Yet for THREE months after the Champions Trophy we sat on our backsides doing NOTHING after PCB foolishly and spitefully cancelled the Bangladesh tour without any replacement series.
They then shortened this Sri Lanka series to a 2 Test series so there's no margin for error, one bad day and the series is gone. Our next test assignment is SEVEN months from now in England next May. How can you improve your Test team playing such little Test cricket ?
When you play such little long form cricket, the players' fitness and stamina is also affected. We've seen Wahab Riaz and Hasan Ali pull up with injury having not played any FC cricket for five months.
Sethi and the PCB were hell bent on their vanity project which was the World XI series ensuring preparation for this series was shortened and totally inadequate. Someone remind them that the national team is our bread and butter.
Who can forget the drama of the PCB recalling the players from their CPL and T20 Blast stints for "fitness tests" only to U-turn and cancel the National T20. They cram in the World XI series in this time leaving just 13 days to fly out to UAE after the matches in Lahore, adapt to a different format, introduce new players, acclimatise to conditions and prepare for the opposition before the start of the 1st Test.
Only in Pakistan do we repeatedly shoot ourselves in the foot like this.
They then shortened this Sri Lanka series to a 2 Test series so there's no margin for error, one bad day and the series is gone. Our next test assignment is SEVEN months from now in England next May. How can you improve your Test team playing such little Test cricket ?
When you play such little long form cricket, the players' fitness and stamina is also affected. We've seen Wahab Riaz and Hasan Ali pull up with injury having not played any FC cricket for five months.
Sethi and the PCB were hell bent on their vanity project which was the World XI series ensuring preparation for this series was shortened and totally inadequate. Someone remind them that the national team is our bread and butter.
Who can forget the drama of the PCB recalling the players from their CPL and T20 Blast stints for "fitness tests" only to U-turn and cancel the National T20. They cram in the World XI series in this time leaving just 13 days to fly out to UAE after the matches in Lahore, adapt to a different format, introduce new players, acclimatise to conditions and prepare for the opposition before the start of the 1st Test.
Only in Pakistan do we repeatedly shoot ourselves in the foot like this.
