Fielding let us down, says Mohsin Khan

The Interim coach of the Pakistan cricket team, Mohsin Hasan Khan, has blamed his team’s fielding for not being able to produce a result in the first Test of the series against Sri Lanka at Abu Dhabi and said that his team would have taken a 1-0 lead in the series had the fielders held on to their chances.

Pakistan was in a commanding position till the first three days of the first Test after they bowled out the visitors for a mere 197 runs on the opening day of the match. The Green Shirts bowled pretty well in the second innings as well on a very flat track; however, their fielders never responded and dropped some very straight-forward catches to give the Islanders a hope of drawing the match, which they eventually did.

A number of cricket analysts in the world have slammed the management of Pakistan cricket team for playing defensive cricket because they batted a touch slowly in their first innings and decided not to go for a reachable target in the second innings.

However, Mohsin is not ready to accept that the strategy was negative and said that it is only because of poor fielding that the Green Shirts failed to make a match of it.

“Our fielding let us down in the end. Catches are not dropped on purpose but we dropped some crucial catches at crucial times in the match and we suffered in the end due to those dropped catches,” the interim coach feels.

The former opening batsman is satisfied with his team’s performance in batting and bowling and just like many cricket fans from Pakistan, Mohsin is disappointed with the outcome of this match.

Mohsin said, “We played some good cricket and it’s disappointing not to be coming away from the first test match in Abu Dhabi with a victory under our belts. We were particularly good with both bat and ball in the first three days of the match.”

The second match of the three-match series is going to start from October 26, 2011, in Dubai. Let us hope that the pitch there is more supportive for the bowlers.

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Ajmal and Hafeez will be the key for Pakistan :Basit Ali

Former Pakistani Test cricketer and middle-order batsman, Basit Ali, has expressed his opinion that off-spinner, Saeed Ajmal and all-rounder, Mohammad Hafeez are going to be key players for Pakistan in the upcoming Test series against Sri Lanka.
The series between the two countries is going to start from October 18, 2011, with the first Test at Abu Dhabi.
The Sri Lankan team is going through a rebuilding phase at the moment as they no longer have the services of legendary bowlers, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas or Lasith Malinga, who has confined himself to limited overs cricket.
All these bowlers have played a big role for Sri Lanka’s Test victories in the last decade and it is surely going to be a huge challenge for the inexperienced Sri Lankan bowling attack to take 20 wickets in a match against a quality opposition like Pakistan.
On the other side of the coin, the former middle-order batsman believes that Saeed Ajmal is at the peak of his career at the moment and he is going to be a huge force in the future assignments. He also praised the performances of Mohammad Hafeez in the recent past and hopes that he is going to carry on with the same momentum.
He said, “For Pakistan, the key is Saeed Ajmal in bowling and Hafeez is in good form with bat and ball. These two players can play an important role in upcoming series.”
While talking about the new ruling of the International Cricket Council (ICC) regarding two new balls at both ends in One Day International cricket, Basit said that this rule is going to favour the bowlers on green tracks and will be ideal for batsmen on flat pitches.
“It will be difficult to handle for batsman in seaming and bouncy condition but will help batsman in Asia. It would be very difficult for bowlers to bowl in Asia, which provides another advantage for batsman. The harder the ball the faster it will go and it will be easy pickings for batsman in batting friendly condition like we have in Asia,” Basit added.

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