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“We had a clear plan on what pitches to prepare for Bangladesh and what to prepare against England,” he said on Tuesday. “Our approach was to accelerate the wickets against Bangladesh and spin the pitches against England. Our instructions to the curator for the first Test was that the ball should spin after the second day. But the pitch did not take turn until the fifth day. Hopefully the The ball will begin to take turns from the ninth day.
“You have to take 20 wickets,” Mahmood said. “We thought about how we were going to take them. We thought if we use that pitch, the idea was how to take 20 wickets against England and we thought spin was the way to do it.
“The players who are coming are experts. They are all experts and have been playing high-quality cricket for an hour. The most suitable option is to play at home on pitches that they cannot access, so I don’t do that.” I don’t suppose there’s much power in that.”
“Pakistan has so much cricket ahead of them that the selection committee decided to give Babar a spare, because Pakistan has to move to Australia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.”
Azhar Mahmood on Babar Azam’s exclusion from Test squad
While each of the incoming spinners – Zahid Mahmood, Noman Ali and Sajid Khan – have amassed plenty of first-class experience over the years, none of it has been particularly recent. The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy season has not started yet, which means that these players’ last participation in the red ball was in the previous season; neither of them have played a first-class match since January this year. Pitched against an England team that broke a multitude of records on this very ground last week, it’s not a particularly gentle relaxation.
“Babar is our disagreement. 1 participant in phrases with method and talent,” he said. “Pakistan has so much cricket ahead of them that the selection committee decided to give Babar a rest, because Pakistan needs to move to Australia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
“We need to take advantage of our conditions. We announced the team for a test match because we knew we would have changes. After this, we will fly to Australia to play white-ball cricket. We knew we would have to rest Shaheen and other important players because we will have cricket non-stop for the next six months.”
There is also some skepticism about Mahmood’s reasoning. None of the post-white-ball excursions are as important for Pakistan as a three-match home Test line against England. That is arguably the most important line for Pakistan this tidal season, and there will invariably be questions as to why the white-ball back line might not be a more suitable avenue for rotation.
Fielding three spinners alongside Salman Agha, who Mahmood said in August was once a “spinner specialist”, requires an undeniable level of confidence that the sound will bowl. “We left a lot of grass on the fields and we wanted the ball to spin to use the field to our advantage. Let’s see if it works for us.”
