Spineless Pakistan face criticism from former stars after England loss
karachi — Former Pakistan cricketers including Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar have criticised the team’s dismal performance in the second Test against England, saying that the team’s batting got completely exposed.
England beat Pakistan by a massive 330 runs to win the second Test at Old Trafford. Pakistan’s former head coach Younis said that there was no excuse for the batting shambles and he went to the extent of calling it ‘spineless’. “I am not saying we should have won this Test but this is not the way to go down. The spineless batting would have given the England bowlers a lot of confidence now.”
Waqar also felt that the Pakistan Cricket Board really needed to take up on war footing the issue of foreign teams not touring Pakistan.
“Our cricket is suffering a lot because of no international cricket at home since last six years,” he said.
“One saw no planning in the entire match from a Pakistani perspective and as expected our batting has been badly exposed by the England bowlers,” Akhtar said. “You can say our batting has been unmasked and exposed on a pitch which had bounce and nothing more. Our batting always struggles on surfaces with bounce that is why we toil in England and Australia.”
Akhtar said he was very disappointed with the performance of the bowlers as well. “There was no game plan on how to bowl on the Old Trafford pitch and the line was just not right and the intent was missing throughout the England innings,” he added. Former Test captain Ramiz Raja said the loss was the continuation of Pakistan woes. “Our biggest problem is that our players just don’t adapt quickly enough to different conditions.” —