Pakistan can end home drought against England: Masood
Struggling Pakistan captain Shan Masood feels the Test team has an opportunity to capitalise on home advantage against strong England and end a long drought of 10 winless home matches.
England, led by Ben Stokes, will arrive on Wednesday for back-to-back Test matches at Multan, starting next week, followed by the third and final Test in Rawalpindi.
“We all have a huge opportunity to turn this around against England,” Masood told reporters in Karachi.
Pakistan’s winless home streak includes a 3-0 whitewash at the hands of England when they last toured to the country in 2022.
Masood’s performances – both as a top-order batter and captain – are also under the scanner after suffering five successive losses since being elevated to skipper last year.
Under his captaincy Pakistan lost 3-0 in Australia and last month suffered a shocking 2-0 defeat against Bangladesh at home. Pakistan’s last home Test win came against South Africa in early 2021.
“It’s not acceptable for Pakistan to not win a home Test for that long and we accept the responsibility for that,” Masood added on Monday.
“We’re all hurt. As a cricketing nation, as people that follow cricket, whether that’s the media, the fans, the cricketers themselves and the cricket board, everyone’s hurt.”
The selection committee, which also includes Australian Jason Gillespie, Pakistan’s red-ball head coach, has kept faith in the team that lost to Bangladesh with only 37-year-old left-arm spinner Noman Ali recalled.
Pakistan’s batting let the team down against Bangladesh with Babar Azam and Masood failing to convert good starts, while opener Abdullah Shafique also struggled.
Left-handed young opener Saim Ayub showed occasional brilliance but was guilty of throwing away his wicket after scoring two half centuries against Bangladesh.
“My challenge to the batting unit would be that against Bangladesh we batted well in the first innings, but how can we make that better,” Masood said.
“How can we turn the second innings collapses into match-winning scores. We’ve got capable enough batsmen, that’s why we’re trying to back the same batting unit.”
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