The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief Mohsin Naqvi has expressed his disappointment over the team’s humiliating 10-wicket defeat against Bangladesh in the Rawalpindi Test. This was the first time Pakistan had lost to Bangladesh in the longest format of the game, sending shockwaves through the nation.
Naqvi attributed the loss to multiple factors, including skipper Shan Masood’s captaincy, team selection, the performances of top batters like Babar Azam, and the inability of pacers like Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah to deliver with the ball.
Former Pakistan cricketers have also criticized the selectors for not picking talented players from the domestic pool. However, Naqvi believes that there aren’t many quality players in Pakistan’s domestic pool to choose from.
“It was a very disappointing loss,” Naqvi said. “The problem is the selection committee has no pool to turn to.”
Naqvi had promised a “surgery” after Pakistan’s early elimination from the T20 World Cup 2024, but the same problems resurfaced in the first Test against Bangladesh. While the PCB chief remains keen to find a solution, he admitted that there aren’t many quality players to choose from.
“We want to fix our problems,” Naqvi said, “but when we look at how to resolve them, we don’t have any solid data or (elite) players pool which we can draw from.”
After the first match, Pakistan captain Shan Masood accepted that mistakes were made by him and the team.
“Never to make an excuse, it (the pitch) didn’t play the way we thought it would. Also the weather had been around in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, it rained around 8-9 days before the first day of play. Firstly looking at the pitch, we expected it to do a bit more. With three pace bowlers, they were gonna be pushed to the limit. At the end of the day, we got it wrong,” he said.
