After winning the T20 series 2-0 against Pakistan, Australia won the Test series by 2-0 as well. Pakistan lost both the Tests by an innings.
Pakistan has not won a Test match in Australia since 1999. The importance of Test cricket has now increased than it was earlier.
Now, due to World Test Championship, each team gets points if they win or the match is tied or drawn. Further, the top two teams will play final at The Lord’s in June 2021.
Therefore, teams must have a good bunch of experienced players playing in every department, batting or bowling.
The ground for this recent series loss was not just due to lack of experience in their batting or bowling department. Yes, we can say that players like Azhar Ali should have executed better as he has toured Australia before like Asad Shafiq and Babar Azam.
One can also say that Yasir Shah could have bowled better as he has also toured Australia before.
However, there are other reasons as well, which are very alarming in the current cricketing world.
Mohammad Amir after the World Cup 2019 announced his retirement at the age of only 27 years from Test cricket, citing his desire to focus on white-ball formats.
However, he will continue playing county cricket in England, which is a little shocking. Amir’s experience would have been handy for Pakistan’s bowling in this recent Test series against Australia.
Moreover, Wahab Riaz has taken a break from the Test cricket to focus on shorter formats and was unavailable for this Australia series.
He was the leading wicket-taker for Pakistan when they toured Australia in 2016. He took eleven wickets in three matches. Therefore, his experience would have also helped Pakistan a lot in this series.
After looking at the World Test Championship format, this could have been managed in a better way by both these players.
Further, as a Test captain, this was Azhar Ali’s first series, as former captain Sarfaraz Ahmed was dropped. Therefore, the new Pakistan cricket management should have managed the Sarfaraz issue calmly and should not have directly dropped him.
Thus, one should not entirely fault the current Pakistan players for this loss. It was also due to the circumstances created by the senior players and squad management.
Parth Baxi
Roar Rookie
Well, at least something is better than nothing. They had experience of playing on these tracks, that could have made some difference.
Bobbo7
Guest
They got beaten by a better side at home.
dat
Roar Rookie
Amir avg 49 in Australia ,not sure what you expected him to do differently. Like his numbers suggest with similar avg of 43 in lanka and 56 in the uae, he isn’t really a bowler for conditions without some assistance in it for the quicks. He himself identified that weakness of his and was contemplating retirement for over a year now, to manage his workload. Now that his pace has dipped and he rarely even clocks low 140s, his inclusion wouldn’t have amounted to much and probably would have played out just like with abbas. Wahab on the other hand has a decent strike rate of 54 here, but as one expects from him, he gives away far too many runs in between those wicket taking deliveries to be a threat. He is also 34 years old right now and wont be able to put in as many overs as the youngsters did in this tour. Neither of them could have given enough support to Shaheen Afridi to restrict the opposition to an achievable total so they themselves decided it was time to end their test careers.
dungerBob
Roar Rookie
Let' not be coy about it, it was a flogging, but there were some definite positives for Pakistan. Shaheen stood up well. He's pacey enough, holds a good line and has the left armers angles on his side. At 19 I thought he was very good and looks to have the world at his feet. He lacked support though. Abbas is too slow for our decks, Imran was all over the shop and the other teens were too raw and inexperienced to cope. Amir and Riaz would have been the perfect partners now that I think about it. .. Rizwan is a great find too. He played as well as anyone on either side imo. Love his attitude to batting and his glove work was very tidy. Babar looks world class at times. He could be anything.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
A couple of commentators suggested Sarfraz should have stayed as captain but keeping Mohammed Rizwan as a specialist batsman. Iftikhar was new to Tests and didn’t work out, and Harris Sohail didn’t seem suited to the bouncier Brisbane pitch. There was good batting talent among the rest who all played good innings at times. But the bowling is well down on previous years, both the new guys and Abbas and Yasir, who were below par. Musa Muhammad was a really strange selection- only seven first class games with an average over 35. Doesn’t matter if he’s quick - someone that short doesn’t get enough bounce and it is much easier to pick up the ball out of their hand.
Linphoma
Guest
I have in-depth cricket conversations with my Pakistani partner at work and yesterday morning his immediate attention was why didn't Paine allow Warner to shoot for 401? Not so much why his beloved Pakistan was taking such a drubbing. There I said is the rub: the difference between Pakistani and Australian outlooks to the game. We had previously discussed Amir's absence. After Brisbane I asked him where Amir was (such a shame as Naseem looked like a good 'un; Shaheen is a potential world-class performer if he could get his ham-fisted fielding right) and the following morning he gave me the news about Amir's retirement from red-ball cricket at the grand old age of 27. I let off a host of expletives and he expressed similar sentiment. But isn't this another symptom of the personal rather than the more altruistic spirit we like to attribute to those who wear national colours? This morning I put it to him: Did Pakistan come out here to deliberately capitulate? He went immediately to a rant on Misbah. I gather the knives are out in the Pakistani press at this moment with the scent of his blood in the water. My estimation was too many egos.
Parth Baxi
Roar Rookie
Yes, their batting did fail. But, it was difficult to bat against these Australian bowlers. Imam and Masood were playing for the first time in Australian conditions. Who knows if Amir and Wahab would have played the Australian batters could have scored less while batting and we would have seen some contest in this Test series. The bowlers were much weaker than their batsmen. The proper balance was laking according to me.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Its not suprising that Pakistan lost, whats suprising is that how few runs they are getting in good batting conditions, though if you look at some of the shots they are playing in the periods where they are collapsing its evident they are deliberate get out shots not natural shots. Kolpak is only in South Africa,Zimbabwe and some parts of the Carribean so at least they dont have that draining their players. The question is how much of their revenue goes to the players, in the case of NZ they spend a large portion of their revenue on their national team players and they have performed well.
Tanmoy Kar
Roar Rookie
Three major reasons for Pakistan's poor performance in the Test Series are, I) Inexperienced pace attack, ii) Playing too many T20 League cricket, iii) Playing in slow and low UAE pitches for last 10 years.
Paul
Roar Guru
Parth, you've described a really tough situation for Pakistan. They not only lost some experienced players before the touring side was announced, some of the guys they were counting on were out of form, like the captain & Yasir Shah. Muhummad Abbas was not on song and the young bowlers struggled in unfamiliar conditions. Throw in some captaincy choices that weren't great and Pakistan were going to struggle. That said, Rizwan I thought was terrific both with the gloves and the bat, Babar showed what a good player he is and the young quicks can only benefit from this tour. If the team can get some stability in it's batting order with more guys in form, Pakistan has the makings of a very good Test side, but they shouldn't expect quick miracles.