Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ramiz Raja has shared his views on the national team’s series defeat to England on home soil. The former player also admitted that there is a scarcity of Test players on the domestic circuit, but he also believes that none of their new players could manage to perform well.
However, the Pakistan team faced a new low last week when they lost to England, which was their second successive defeat at home in a year. On a poor Rawalpindi track in the first Test, England registered a win and achieved it by 75 runs. They sealed the series with a 26-run win in Multan as well. While speaking to the media at the National Stadium in Karachi, Ramiz Raja added that had Saud Shakeel not been controversially given out in Multan, Pakistan would have won it as well.
He said, “Our Test cricket pool is very limited. We want the players to make their debut at home and none of them were bad debuts. We saw how good Saud Shakeel batted. And had they not given that down-the-leg-side-catch out, we would have won the Test. If the last five batters tend to score at least 10-15 runs then we can improve a lot.”
“When you lose two matches in a row, there there are a couple of negative things that can happen” – Ramiz Raja
He also gave the credit to the team for not letting the loss affect them, saying:
“When you lose two matches in a row, there there are a couple of negative things that can happen – either there could be a negative mindset or there could be a negative environment in the dressing room. But this team has shown neither. So credit to them.”
However, the Rawalpindi pitch, which had first-inning scores of 657 and 579, got a below-average rating from the ICC as well. Meanwhile, Babar Azam and Co. missed a chance of putting up a formidable first-innings total as England restricted them to 304 on day one of the third and final Test in Karachi as well.
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