Former Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi slammed the Pakistan Cricket Board for featuring with four pacers against Bangladesh in the first Test match at Rawalpindi Stadium in Rawalpindi on Sunday, August 25. With this win against Shan Masood & Co., Bangladesh registered their first-ever Test win against Pakistan. Shahid Afridi said that making this type of pitch and decisions clearly shows lack of awareness.
Bangladesh defeated Pakistan by 10 wickets to register their maiden win against neighbouring nations.
“A 10-wicket defeat raises serious questions about the decision to prepare this type of pitch, select four fast bowlers and leave out a specialist spinner. This to me clearly shows a lack of awareness about home conditions. That said, you cannot take the credit away from Bangladesh for the brand of cricket they played throughout the Test” Wrote Shahid Afridi on 'X'.
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Pakistan were playing with four pacers and they removed their spinner Abrar Ahmed from the squad saying that the pitch of Rawalpindi would help speedsters but that seemed wrong as Pakistan's spinners bundled out Pakistan on just 146 runs.
After Pakistan's 10-wicket defeat skipper Shan Masood also said that it was a bad call to go in without a specialist spinner.
“We had anticipated the pitch to offer more assistance to the seamers. Looking at the pitch, we expected it to do more,” he said at the post match conference.
"If we played 3 fast bowlers, we would be pushing them to the limit and the spinner would be bowling 25-30 overs a day, which we wanted to avoid.
"We thought that with the weather, it may not even last the full 5 days. At the end of the day, we got it wrong,” he said.
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