KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Struggling Pakistan captain Shan Masood feels the test team has an opportunity to capitalize on home advantage against strong England and end its 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. Rawalpindi will host the third test from Oct. 24-28.
“We all have a huge opportunity to turn this around against England and hopefully we can take a good start in Multan,” Masood told reporters in southern port city of Karachi on Monday. “We’re all very excited and hope we get memorable results against England.”
Pakistan's long winless home streak includes a 3-0 whitewash at the hands of England when it 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 test 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. Since then it has lost to England, Australia and Bangladesh, while drawing against New Zealand.
“It’s not acceptable for Pakistan to not win a home test for that long and we accept the responsibility for that,” Masood said.
“The players are hurt, we’re all hurt. As a cricketing nation, as people that follow cricket, whether that’s the media, whether that’s the fans, whether that’s the cricketers themselves and the cricket board, everyone’s hurt right now.”
The selection committee, which also includes Masood and red-ball head coach Jason Gillespie, has kept faith in the same team which had a woeful series against Bangladesh with only 37-year-old left-arm spinner Noman Ali getting recalled in the 15-member squad.
Pakistan’s batting woes at the top had let the team down against Bangladesh with Babar Azam and Masood failing to convert good starts, while opening batter Abdullah Shafique also struggled upfront.
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 both times when we’ve played 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, that’s the challenge that I put out to our batting side. We’ve got capable enough batsmen, that’s why we’re trying to back the same batting unit and hopefully they can turn it around in this series.”
England will be without the retired James Anderson and express fast bowler Mark Wood, who both were part of the squad which toured Pakistan two year ago. But Masood believes it won’t be easy for Pakistan.
“Anderson’s not there, Wood’s not there, but they’ve still got 17 quality players that can play this game,” Masood said. “There have been a lot of new upcoming players which will be very exciting to watch in the cricketing world in the future … they’ve got a lot of experience, a lot of world class current players as well.”
AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
Pakistan test cricket team's skipper Shan Masood speaks during a press conference regarding upcoming three test series against England, in Karachi, Pakistan, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)
Pakistan test cricket team's skipper Shan Masood speaks during a press conference regarding upcoming three test series against England, in Karachi, Pakistan, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)
