- Joined
- Oct 2, 2004
- Runs
- 217,869
Shan Masood speaking in presser ahead of the 2nd Test at MCG:
"One Test is never a fair assessment,"
"You need time. You need a bit more time. You've already got a squad that's been playing Test cricket for a while. You have to look at the domestic structure and the players available for red-ball cricket. A lot of things you need before you can sort of force that way of playing."
"You need players to buy in. We want to give players ample opportunity to buy into the way we want to play. There are some things that we've said from the outside that we want to play a more attractive brand of Test cricket. We did that in Sri Lanka. We got some results as well. The challenge now is to do it against the best teams in world cricket."
"We don't want to force people to play a certain way but we've outlined a few things that we want to do better"
"When Australia scored, they scored at 4.5 an over, even though we got the 10 wickets. They set us back with that. And then they bowled, they made sure we didn't get over 3 runs an over. We were 2.6-2.7. Those are the margins. That's where the Test match was lost."
"On Day 4, we saw the pitch, that's where the toss came into play, but the game had been decided in those (first two) days. If we have to compete against Australia here, we have to start well and get quickly off the blocks and play a positive brand of cricket, which you have to give the guys some time. It can't happen overnight. You have to see how players play naturally. You have to convince them as to how you want them to play and then give them a proper chance and also try and set the tone yourself. I thought that I had a decent start in Perth but couldn't capitalise on it. Got out at the wrong time. These are the things that you want to do. But be patient with the players. Just because one match hasn't gone our way, we shouldn't go 'this is isn't working or that there is no Pakistan way'. We should let our team have some time to establish themselves."
"We have to be adaptable to different situations; You also have to give a lot of credit to the openers. When you concede 450 runs in the first innings and you've got heavy legs and you've been out there for 110 overs. They did the right thing over there. They negated the new ball and got through some really good spells from top class bowlers. That's what you needed to do in that situation."
"When I went out, the ball was a bit older, run-scoring was a bit easier. You need to pick your moments and you want to pick your battles. That's what I want the team to do. Be adaptable to different situations. Be positive. And not have huge margins where the other team is scoring at 4.5 and we'll let them score at 4.5 as a bowling unit and not picking up those wickets in an earlier phase and not in 110 overs. And secondly as a batting unit, if we're batting for 100 overs, we'd like to close that gap and score 350 or 360 or something like that. Again it's about from a personal point of view, it's something that I've enjoyed over the last few years. My red-ball in domestic cricket has improved since I started batting more positively. As a batting unit, our goal is to make sure that if we are batting 100 overs then we score at a higher rate."
"We wanted to set a precedent where we wanted to reward people who have been playing red-ball consistently in domestic cricket over the past few years"
"You saw that with the selection of KS (Khurram Shahzad) and AJ (Aamer Jamal) even though a lot of people felt it was quite risky putting two debutants out there. I think they handled themselves well and we have to give them credit because their first outing in Australia was quite decent. The reason to play Sarfaraz was pretty much the same. People go back to stats and Rizwan averages very well in SENA. Firstly there's no competition between the two. They're equally important to the team. Any competition they have is healthy competition. We know what Rizwan has done but we gave Sarfaraz the benefit because he averaged 56.50 on his last tour here in 2016. Yes, that's been quite a while but he's also played red ball consistently in the Quaid-e-Azam trophy in the last few years."
"Rizwan just came from the World Cup, a lot of white ball cricket. And he also had a gap in red-ball cricket since Sarfaraz took over from him for the New Zealand series. Sarfaraz had an outstanding performance there and Rizwan hadn't played a lot of red-ball cricket. So there was a method to it. He's been there, he played red-ball cricket. Karachi had a very good season where he was the tournament's MVP, and that allowed us to get a player like Rizwan into shape. If I had it my way, I'd ideally like both to play but that's not possible. Now we think Rizwan is ready and we can give Saifi that little bit of break to recuperate and come back."
"We were testing each and every player in the two day test game. We were restricted to 13 to 14 places [in the team]. But the whole method was that we’ll go to the ground, and when you spend about 8 to 10 hours at the ground, you get a feel that you would in a test match and just make the practice more intensive because when you are in the nets there are no consequences; it can get very monotonous. So everything was specific towards the match preparation "
" I think we would love to have a one final look at the pitch. Our last look at the pitch was on 21st [December]. I think we should be a bit sensible; make sure we have a full look at the pitch and if we need to play a certain kind of bowler or batsmen, then we would make that decision. That’s why we announced the 12 so the players can also have some clarity.”
"It happens and happens to the best of players [Shaheen Shah Afridi]; you have to give him that margin [of error]. I think he bowled really well in a lot of spells at Perth; there were a lot of plays and misses. Yes, he was a bit expensive to start off with but that’s Shaheen - he was always looking for wickets and we don’t want him to change. I thought that in Perth, the way he bowled, especially in the second innings and a lot of the first innings, he could have gotten some luck his way. But you just give him that time and give him that space and it’s just about that one click; he’s somebody that can turn a match around in an instant. If he bowls well, I‘m sure we would be on the right side."
"Pace is important but in last tour we brought in guys like Naseem Shah and Musa [Khan] with us. So we had pace then but not experience. It's good that we have given chances to two bowlers that were performing really well in the recent domestic tournaments. There was a time when we had secured 15 wickets and would have taken 20 when Usman Khawaja got out but unfortunately that decision get overturned and we missed the opportunity to take 20 wickets. Talking about pace we also tried to bring in guy like Haris Rauf for this reason as he can provide good pace. Naseem was unfortunately injured and Shaheen, we believe whenever he is bowling he is up there in terms of pace. "
"Mir Hamza is also in our squad and he has claimed many wickets in red ball cricket. Hasan Ali also has many performances for Pakistan and he has been playing county cricket for the last two years. So we are in a transitional phase at the moment and looking out for both pace and accuracy that can help us in getting 20 wickets because you can only win matches when you take 20 wickets "
"One Test is never a fair assessment,"
"You need time. You need a bit more time. You've already got a squad that's been playing Test cricket for a while. You have to look at the domestic structure and the players available for red-ball cricket. A lot of things you need before you can sort of force that way of playing."
"You need players to buy in. We want to give players ample opportunity to buy into the way we want to play. There are some things that we've said from the outside that we want to play a more attractive brand of Test cricket. We did that in Sri Lanka. We got some results as well. The challenge now is to do it against the best teams in world cricket."
"We don't want to force people to play a certain way but we've outlined a few things that we want to do better"
"When Australia scored, they scored at 4.5 an over, even though we got the 10 wickets. They set us back with that. And then they bowled, they made sure we didn't get over 3 runs an over. We were 2.6-2.7. Those are the margins. That's where the Test match was lost."
"On Day 4, we saw the pitch, that's where the toss came into play, but the game had been decided in those (first two) days. If we have to compete against Australia here, we have to start well and get quickly off the blocks and play a positive brand of cricket, which you have to give the guys some time. It can't happen overnight. You have to see how players play naturally. You have to convince them as to how you want them to play and then give them a proper chance and also try and set the tone yourself. I thought that I had a decent start in Perth but couldn't capitalise on it. Got out at the wrong time. These are the things that you want to do. But be patient with the players. Just because one match hasn't gone our way, we shouldn't go 'this is isn't working or that there is no Pakistan way'. We should let our team have some time to establish themselves."
"We have to be adaptable to different situations; You also have to give a lot of credit to the openers. When you concede 450 runs in the first innings and you've got heavy legs and you've been out there for 110 overs. They did the right thing over there. They negated the new ball and got through some really good spells from top class bowlers. That's what you needed to do in that situation."
"When I went out, the ball was a bit older, run-scoring was a bit easier. You need to pick your moments and you want to pick your battles. That's what I want the team to do. Be adaptable to different situations. Be positive. And not have huge margins where the other team is scoring at 4.5 and we'll let them score at 4.5 as a bowling unit and not picking up those wickets in an earlier phase and not in 110 overs. And secondly as a batting unit, if we're batting for 100 overs, we'd like to close that gap and score 350 or 360 or something like that. Again it's about from a personal point of view, it's something that I've enjoyed over the last few years. My red-ball in domestic cricket has improved since I started batting more positively. As a batting unit, our goal is to make sure that if we are batting 100 overs then we score at a higher rate."
"We wanted to set a precedent where we wanted to reward people who have been playing red-ball consistently in domestic cricket over the past few years"
"You saw that with the selection of KS (Khurram Shahzad) and AJ (Aamer Jamal) even though a lot of people felt it was quite risky putting two debutants out there. I think they handled themselves well and we have to give them credit because their first outing in Australia was quite decent. The reason to play Sarfaraz was pretty much the same. People go back to stats and Rizwan averages very well in SENA. Firstly there's no competition between the two. They're equally important to the team. Any competition they have is healthy competition. We know what Rizwan has done but we gave Sarfaraz the benefit because he averaged 56.50 on his last tour here in 2016. Yes, that's been quite a while but he's also played red ball consistently in the Quaid-e-Azam trophy in the last few years."
"Rizwan just came from the World Cup, a lot of white ball cricket. And he also had a gap in red-ball cricket since Sarfaraz took over from him for the New Zealand series. Sarfaraz had an outstanding performance there and Rizwan hadn't played a lot of red-ball cricket. So there was a method to it. He's been there, he played red-ball cricket. Karachi had a very good season where he was the tournament's MVP, and that allowed us to get a player like Rizwan into shape. If I had it my way, I'd ideally like both to play but that's not possible. Now we think Rizwan is ready and we can give Saifi that little bit of break to recuperate and come back."
"We were testing each and every player in the two day test game. We were restricted to 13 to 14 places [in the team]. But the whole method was that we’ll go to the ground, and when you spend about 8 to 10 hours at the ground, you get a feel that you would in a test match and just make the practice more intensive because when you are in the nets there are no consequences; it can get very monotonous. So everything was specific towards the match preparation "
" I think we would love to have a one final look at the pitch. Our last look at the pitch was on 21st [December]. I think we should be a bit sensible; make sure we have a full look at the pitch and if we need to play a certain kind of bowler or batsmen, then we would make that decision. That’s why we announced the 12 so the players can also have some clarity.”
"It happens and happens to the best of players [Shaheen Shah Afridi]; you have to give him that margin [of error]. I think he bowled really well in a lot of spells at Perth; there were a lot of plays and misses. Yes, he was a bit expensive to start off with but that’s Shaheen - he was always looking for wickets and we don’t want him to change. I thought that in Perth, the way he bowled, especially in the second innings and a lot of the first innings, he could have gotten some luck his way. But you just give him that time and give him that space and it’s just about that one click; he’s somebody that can turn a match around in an instant. If he bowls well, I‘m sure we would be on the right side."
"Pace is important but in last tour we brought in guys like Naseem Shah and Musa [Khan] with us. So we had pace then but not experience. It's good that we have given chances to two bowlers that were performing really well in the recent domestic tournaments. There was a time when we had secured 15 wickets and would have taken 20 when Usman Khawaja got out but unfortunately that decision get overturned and we missed the opportunity to take 20 wickets. Talking about pace we also tried to bring in guy like Haris Rauf for this reason as he can provide good pace. Naseem was unfortunately injured and Shaheen, we believe whenever he is bowling he is up there in terms of pace. "
"Mir Hamza is also in our squad and he has claimed many wickets in red ball cricket. Hasan Ali also has many performances for Pakistan and he has been playing county cricket for the last two years. So we are in a transitional phase at the moment and looking out for both pace and accuracy that can help us in getting 20 wickets because you can only win matches when you take 20 wickets "
