- Joined
- Nov 25, 2023
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- 12,723
Mohammad Rizwan in a presser today answered following questions:
Q: What message did you send to others by dropping yourself from the team today?
As a captain and leader, you must lead by example and make sacrifices yourself. Whether it's through performance or other aspects, the captain needs to set the standard. I shared this idea with the staff, management, and players. With the Zimbabwe series approaching and our abundance of talent in the T20 format, we wanted to give our new crop of young and talented players a chance. To provide proper opportunities to players like Haseebullah and Usman Khan, who were batting lower in the order, I decided to drop myself from the playing XI. Every series is important, but when you've already lost a series, you need to look ahead. That's why I gave them this opportunity.
Q: Do guys like yourself, Babar, Shaheen and Naseem fit in the T20I team given the modern nature of game of cricket?
I shall answer it in this manner. If you observe recently the England team had visited Pakistan and we defeated them in the (Test) series via a tactical point. They scored 800 in the first innings and we scored 600 runs but still lost. So later in the series we defeated them with a tactical change in our approach not with a change in our game plan. As you would have witnessed, we won the later match owing to a brilliant performance from Saud Shakeel who scored 70 runs through singles in a Test match whereas at the same time in modern times, teams are sticking to Bazball approach. Even in the Sydney T20I game that we lost owing to a drop of a lot of catches, the scenario of the whole series would have been different had we won there. While on the same pitch at one point Australia was 50/2 and then we staged a strong comeback so I would say that in regard to modern day cricket I lay more emphasis on demand of the game than anything else. So if the demand of a pitch is a 200 plus total and we are not making it then you guys can blame us for not doing well for Pakistan team but on a Sydney pitch the scenario was different and the demand of the pitch varies everywhere. Even Australian captain, Inglis was saying the same that the conditions at pitch were more similar to a Test match. But the bottom line is that we are working hard to improve our game and hopefully God will help us in this pursuit.
Q: Can Pakistan rely on young inexperienced squad to deliver results in Zimbabwe?
We will have to because the bunch of players that we are taking to Zimbabwe are all talented players and God willing we would get something great out from this setup for the better future composition of our team. We got whitewashed here in ( Australia) the T20I series. But in such situations when you are sending in an inexperienced side then your bigger emphasis is on getting the stars for the future rather than on results. Also if you have observed, the bigger teams make such experiments before big tournaments and that is why they come into the tournament at the back of series losses but do well there. Also in this thing is a message for our six mentors on how these (inexperienced) players performance and on which aspect (of their game) they can work. I think we need to work on the game awareness of our upcoming players.
Q: Why doesn't the Pakistan team learn from their mistakes and keeps on repeating them series after series?
It isn't right to suggest that Pakistan is at the bottom of the table in fitness, fielding, batting and every other domain because if this would have been the case then different commentators wouldn't have praised our players and on learning aspect, yes we try to learn from our mistakes.
Q: What message did you send to others by dropping yourself from the team today?
As a captain and leader, you must lead by example and make sacrifices yourself. Whether it's through performance or other aspects, the captain needs to set the standard. I shared this idea with the staff, management, and players. With the Zimbabwe series approaching and our abundance of talent in the T20 format, we wanted to give our new crop of young and talented players a chance. To provide proper opportunities to players like Haseebullah and Usman Khan, who were batting lower in the order, I decided to drop myself from the playing XI. Every series is important, but when you've already lost a series, you need to look ahead. That's why I gave them this opportunity.
Q: Do guys like yourself, Babar, Shaheen and Naseem fit in the T20I team given the modern nature of game of cricket?
I shall answer it in this manner. If you observe recently the England team had visited Pakistan and we defeated them in the (Test) series via a tactical point. They scored 800 in the first innings and we scored 600 runs but still lost. So later in the series we defeated them with a tactical change in our approach not with a change in our game plan. As you would have witnessed, we won the later match owing to a brilliant performance from Saud Shakeel who scored 70 runs through singles in a Test match whereas at the same time in modern times, teams are sticking to Bazball approach. Even in the Sydney T20I game that we lost owing to a drop of a lot of catches, the scenario of the whole series would have been different had we won there. While on the same pitch at one point Australia was 50/2 and then we staged a strong comeback so I would say that in regard to modern day cricket I lay more emphasis on demand of the game than anything else. So if the demand of a pitch is a 200 plus total and we are not making it then you guys can blame us for not doing well for Pakistan team but on a Sydney pitch the scenario was different and the demand of the pitch varies everywhere. Even Australian captain, Inglis was saying the same that the conditions at pitch were more similar to a Test match. But the bottom line is that we are working hard to improve our game and hopefully God will help us in this pursuit.
Q: Can Pakistan rely on young inexperienced squad to deliver results in Zimbabwe?
We will have to because the bunch of players that we are taking to Zimbabwe are all talented players and God willing we would get something great out from this setup for the better future composition of our team. We got whitewashed here in ( Australia) the T20I series. But in such situations when you are sending in an inexperienced side then your bigger emphasis is on getting the stars for the future rather than on results. Also if you have observed, the bigger teams make such experiments before big tournaments and that is why they come into the tournament at the back of series losses but do well there. Also in this thing is a message for our six mentors on how these (inexperienced) players performance and on which aspect (of their game) they can work. I think we need to work on the game awareness of our upcoming players.
Q: Why doesn't the Pakistan team learn from their mistakes and keeps on repeating them series after series?
It isn't right to suggest that Pakistan is at the bottom of the table in fitness, fielding, batting and every other domain because if this would have been the case then different commentators wouldn't have praised our players and on learning aspect, yes we try to learn from our mistakes.
