Former Pakistan Cricketers Criticise Shan Masood & Co after Bangladesh Complete Historic Whitewash
Former Pakistan cricketers, including Mohammed Wasim and Ramiz Raja, criticize Shan Masood and team after Bangladesh's historic 2-0 Test series sweep, highlighting internal team issues and lack of fitness.
Image Credits: AAMIR QURESHI/AFP via Getty Images
A day after Pakistan lost their second consecutive Test series when Bangladesh stunned the Men-in-Green at home on Tuesday with a historic 2-0 clean sweep, former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief selector Mohammed Wasim launched a scathing attack against a handful of players, whom he termed as “cancer” to the team.
Lashing out at certain players, whom he didn’t wish to name, Wasim, who was the chief selector during Ramiz Raja’s tenure as the PCB Chairman, said that he had attempted to remove those players from the team during his term, but they were recalled by the team management.
For the first time in Test cricket history, Pakistan suffered a loss against Bangladesh when the Najmul Shanto-led side won the series opener on August 25 in Rawalpindi. However, the hosts did find themselves in a commanding position in the second Test, when they left Bangladesh reeling at 26 for six after being folded for 276 runs in the first innings.
Thereafter, centurion Litton Das and Mehidy Hasan Miraz, who hit a fifty in their triple-figure partnership, led a spectacular recovery for the visitors to leave Bangladesh just 12 shy of Pakistan’s first-innings total.
In the second innings, Bangladesh pace duo of Nahid Rana and Mahmud Rana picked up nine wickets between themselves to fold Pakistan for just 172 runs, before Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim took Bangladesh past the finish line on the final day of the match.
The six-wicket win was Bangladesh’s eighth victory in an overseas Test, and it helped them secure their fourth clean sweep in Test history, and second on tour.
In a brutal assessment of the team’s failure to stop Bangladesh from registering a clean sweep, Wasim told SportsBoom.com, it was painful for him as a former cricketer to see the team on the wrong side of the outcome. He, however, believed that the outcome had more to do with the dressing room environment that was plagued by the presence of a few individuals whom he had tried to sack during his tenure as the selection committee chairman.
This is a new low for Pakistan cricket. It is painful to see the team lose a series, despite being in a dominant position for a good part of the second Test, and then they allowed the likes of Litton Das and Mehidy to rebuild the innings. That was the turning point of the Test in my view
Mohammed Wasim
“From the feedback I have gathered from as many as four coaches, there is a group of cricketers in the team who is a cancer to the team. I would refrain from taking names, but I tried to sack these individuals during my time as chief selector, but they were recalled by the team management,” he added.
Wasim also touched upon the fitness issues of players and stressed on the importance of workload management. Citing examples of Imad Wasim and Azam Khan, who have been part of major tournaments despite suffering from injuries or fitness issues, Wasim said fitness is paramount when it comes to players representing the national side.
On Tuesday, Pakistan Test skipper Shan Masood also felt that Pakistan missed a fourth seamer in the match, while stressing on the importance of fitness of his quicks.
“I think Test cricket demands something else in terms of fitness. We played four fast bowlers in the first Test and the reason was we thought the workload would be too much for three people to manage. And that was proved in this game when we lost a fast bowler in each innings. I think even in this Test match, having just three fast bowlers and two spinners was less, we could have done with another pacer,” Masood said in the post-match presentation.
Former Pakistan captain Ramiz Raja hit out at Masood, saying he can’t blame the bowlers as he had picked the side for the second Test.
“It’s the job of the leader to fight. Yes, he (Masood) is a young captain, and the bowling attack was young, but he had picked up this bowling attack,” Raja said.
Meanwhile, Wasim also criticised the team’s former captain Babar Azam, who failed to score a fifty in four innings against the visiting team. He has been below-par since a long time and a number of former Pakistan players are urging him to take a break from the game.
Babar’s lack of runs in the series added to Pakistan’s misery during the two Tests against Bangladesh. Wasim went to call Babar “stubborn" and said that the right-hander wasn’t ready to accept changes during his tenure as captain.
Following their loss after the first Test, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief Mohsin Naqvi had blamed the lack of “talent pool” for national team’s poor outings in the Test cricket.
“The problem is the selection committee has no pool to turn to for high-quality replacement players. Losing to Bangladesh is sad but the selection committee had given the team 17 players,” Naqvi had said.
Pakistan has little time to recover, with England lined up for a three-test series next month in Pakistan.
Tridip Kr Sharma has been covering sports for close to a decade and a half, and served for various leading news outlets in India. He has covered three Olympics, three Commonwealth Games and as many Asian Games, besides numerous Cricket World Cups, bilateral cricket tournaments and Test matches.