Did the PCB make the right ethical move not playing a single spinner in A squad against Australia?

[Savak]

The PCB apparently has deliberately not selected a single full time spinner in the A team to square off against Australia in UAE and the motive apparently is to deny the Aussies a single opportunity to acclimatize to the conditions and be prepared to face the Pakistani spinners.

Do you guys believe that this is the correct move ethically speaking?

I personally have no problems with it because how many times do countries like Australia, England, South Africa give us numerous 4 practice games and quality oppositions to practice against and how many times have we played the first test match on tough wickets like Perth, Johannsurberg and Lords?

 

[InziRules]

Tbf, Yasir and Shadab are in squad, and practicing against Nawaz or Imad is worse than not practicing at all

 

[Titan24]

Maybe they wanted to test few pacers.

 

[Markhor]

They deserve it - Australia gave us one match against a "CA XI" before our last tour of Australia with some players barely having more than a handful of FC matches.

The A team is stronger than what they gave us.

 

[Cric1234]

It's highly unlikely they will become great players of spin based on one tour match even if all the bowlers were spinners.

 

[imranq]

Pakistan has no obligation to provide a ideal practice platform for Australia. Other teams do it too so ethics don't apply simple to Pakistan.

 

[the_outsider]

Poor show from Pakistan. Shows a lack of confidence on this team by the PCB and management.

 

[shane]

Poor sportsnamship from Pakistan. The PCB is not cunning enough for such a move, so I suspect it was more Mickey Arthur. Anyway, it will haunt him by the time the Test series comes aroud and Australia's batsmen have gained full confidence from thrashing Rahat Ali all around the UAE.

 

[kingusama92]

Yes.

CA XI was garbage and they literally named a debutant pacer against PAK.

The guy hasn't played FC cricket since that match.

 

[FastBowlingAllrounder]

Don't know about ethics but pulling tricks like this will not allow us to groom that second spinner we need for series'/tournaments like the Asia Cup. Maybe a specialist from domestic could have been played... And if the management thinks that not allowing this Aus. squad to acclimatise to these conditions will give us a major advantage then that gives the wrong idea as we should be able to defeat these guys easily.

 

[RedwoodOriginal]

Don't know about ethics but pulling tricks like this will not allow us to groom that second spinner we need for series'/tournaments like the Asia Cup. Maybe a specialist from domestic could have been played... And if the management thinks that not allowing this Aus. squad to acclimatise to these conditions will give us a major advantage then that gives the wrong idea as we should be able to defeat these guys easily.

One four day match against one of the weakest Australian sides in recent memory does not groom a spinner for test cricket

 

[RedwoodOriginal]

Did CA make the ethical move of providing us one practice match against a CA XI team of university and U-19 level players? Many of whom had not even played first class cricket prior to that match. You reap what you sow. Australians should be lucky they are getting a chance to play Wahab Riaz and Rahat Ali.

 

[RedwoodOriginal]

Poor sportsnamship from Pakistan. The PCB is not cunning enough for such a move, so I suspect it was more Mickey Arthur. Anyway, it will haunt him by the time the Test series comes aroud and Australia's batsmen have gained full confidence from thrashing Rahat Ali all around the UAE.

How does scoring against a seamer give you confidence to play well against a spinner? If anything this will deprive Australia a chance to face the real threat of spin.

Please don't bring sportsmanship into this because this has little to do with sportsmanship. It's simply smart thinking and giving yourself the added advantage before the home series.

 

[Savak]

Rahul Dravid has actually appealled to the ICC to make it mandatory on ICC member countries to make it legally binding on them to provide quality practice games for visiting teams with quality international players playing and to provide a decent number of practice games before the first test match of the tour.

 

[blackanhyellow]

Negative tactics.

I would rather put in a couple of rookie spinners like Zafar Gohar and Asghar and see if they come up with some notable performances.

As this Asia Cup showed, we are desperately in need of some quality spinners to come through.

Yasir Shah wont be around forever.

And it remains to be seen if Shadab is good enough to partner Yasir in tests.

 

[FastBowlingAllrounder]

One four day match against one of the weakest Australian sides in recent memory does not groom a spinner for test cricket

But at least it is something. With the same mentality, all up and coming players will get 0 matches under their belt while at least these small steps will allow them to play 2 matches like these in a year.

 

[FastBowlingAllrounder]

Negative tactics.

I would rather put in a couple of rookie spinners like Zafar Gohar and Asghar and see if they come up with some notable performances.

As this Asia Cup showed, we are desperately in need of some quality spinners to come through.

Yasir Shah wont be around forever.

And it remains to be seen if Shadab is good enough to partner Yasir in tests.

Exactly.

 

[shane]

How does scoring against a seamer give you confidence to play well against a spinner? If anything this will deprive Australia a chance to face the real threat of spin.

Please don't bring sportsmanship into this because this has little to do with sportsmanship. It's simply smart thinking and giving yourself the added advantage before the home series.

Scoring runs in a first class match gives you confidence. Confidence is transferrable, which means scoring runs against seamers will give them confidence to score against spinners. Runs are runs at the end of the day.

What would have made more sense from Pakistan would be to play some decent spinners in the practice match to re-inforce Australia's inabilty to play spin, to create some doubts before the Test match.

 

[wrongun]

It's a pretty cheap move and I'm surprised it happened under the new chairman.

Playing vs even rookie spinners is better prep than only pacers. It's retaliation for weakness of Chairman's XI I guess.

But the equivalent is us rolling out an all spin game before you play a first Test and Gabba/Perth.

What's next, the national Blind Team?

It'd be better for the game if countries rolled out proper opposition but I don't know which host nation is grown up enough to start the trend- England? NZ? WI usually try to expose some talented players as they get minimal FC action...

 

[Major]

Let me remind you guys that in the past, pakistan has always provided quality sides.

But did other teams return the offer? No!

Many posters have mentioned the very good example of some ca 11.

Hence, this is good retaliation by pakistan

this team is much better than the ones we were provides with. It has many international players

 

[badsha001]

Negative tactics.

I would rather put in a couple of rookie spinners like Zafar Gohar and Asghar and see if they come up with some notable performances.

As this Asia Cup showed, we are desperately in need of some quality spinners to come through.

Yasir Shah wont be around forever.

And it remains to be seen if Shadab is good enough to partner Yasir in tests.

Lol Zafar Gohar and Asghar are one of the best spiners in Pakistan currently, better than Shadab in Test too...

 

[Amjid Javed]

All host teams use these pathetic tactics and as a result the win at home at all costs means the overall standard of test cricket everywhere is so poor.

 

[gazza619]

Pretty normal i would say. Nothing unethical about it.
It is a strategy and every nation does it.
Pakistan aint world beaters anyways so why give the opposition good practice.

 

[mak36]

This is standard practice.

Until there is bi/multi-lateral agreement saying otherwise, it's okay.

 

[Arham_PakFan]

I dont mind this move by the PCB. We always play inexperienced teams when we tour abroad. Like others have pointed out, we faced a poor squad for the tour match when we toured Australia.

We are simply returning the favour.

 

[Invincible Gujjar]

It's more than alright.There is nothing unethical about that.Way to go.

 

[Convict]

In an ideal world every touring side will have good opposition.

In the real world every touring side gets served up with joke teams. The PCB didn't do anything that CA hasn't done so nothing to be ashamed of.

 

[Something]

It's tactics. Nothing wrong with it. You do what you have to in order to win.

 

[King Khan]

Selecting them in Pak A games would be a good stepping stone to the senior squad, and considering the drought of quality spinners in Pak right now - this is a missed opportunity.

Also... a bit negative in tactics. What if a spinner we chose runs through the squad - we could have selected him for the tests which would impact on the Aussies' confidence to play him again - as well as facing Yasir Shah.

 

[Bilal7]

Poor, cowardly move. Pakistan should not adopt the cowardly ways of India and Sri Lanka. In fact, I would have played both our back-up spinners in order to provide them match-practice as well as figure out the better of the two.

 

[QalandarFan]

It's tactics. Nothing wrong with it. You do what you have to in order to win.

Exactly not like they gave us great opportunities to prepare last time, hope we thrash them. Yasir to rip through the Aussie line-up which is without Smith and Warner the two best players of spin for Aus.

 

[Extra_Cover]

This trend is kinda worrying. Any success that Pakistan has received in recent past is on the back of spinners and of late we have noticed that Pakistan is reluctant in picking a specialist spinner.

Example, against SL in UAE we played 3 fast bowlers and too much pressure on Yasir result we got humiliated. Another example being the current Asia Cup being played in UAE where Pakistan hasn't picked a genuine spinner in the squad at all very reliant on Shadab who is not a genuine spinner. On other hand Afg, Ind, Bangla, SL all playing 1/2 specialist spinner in their teams.

I'm pretty sure we have very good spin options in domestics and especially in tours of UAE I cant forsee the reasoning for not picking either of Raza Hasan, Usama Mir, Asghar, etc