Azhar Mahmood blames Rawalpindi pitch for Pakistan’s struggles, justifies 4-pacer strategy vs BAN

Pakistan assistant coach Azhar Mahmood revealed the reason why Pakistan opted to go for four specialist seamers in the first Test against Bangladesh in Rawalpindi. In a surprise move before the first Test, Pakistan decided to leave out their only specialist spinner Abrar Ahmed from the Playing XI.

Instead, they went for an all-pace attack and trusted them to pick all the 20 wickets. However, the move did not quite work as Bangladesh batters did not have much trouble in negating Pakistan's fast bowlers. The quicks did not get enough help from the pitch and struggled despite toiling for a no. of hours.

The visitors even went on to take the first innings lead leaving the hosts in a shock. Agha Salman, who is a part-time spinner, bowled more than 30 overs in the innings and Saim Ayub also chipped in with some overs and also picked up a wicket. On the other hand, frontline seamer Shaheen Afridi is still wicketless and Naseem Shah has picked up just a solitary wicket so far

Also read: Jay Shah’s ICC move triggers search for successor, 3 high-profile names emerge for BCCI Secretary role

Azhar Mahmood reveals why Pakistan opted for 4 seamers in Rawalpindi Test

After the end of Day 3, Azhar Mahmood explained why Pakistan went with four seamers and dropped their only spinner in the squad Abrar Ahmed. Mahmood reasoned that the pitch had enough grass on it which prompted the home team to go with an all-pace attack.

"The reason we didn't play a spinner was there was grass on the pitch and we thought it would favour the seamers. We were hoping for that. But the three hours the pitch was sunned before the game started on the first day may have made a difference. The wicket dried out; we didn't think it would dry out so quickly, and that made it play differently," Azhar Mahmood was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

The former Pakistan allrounder further mentioned that anybody would have thought that it would be a seaming track. He claimed that the Pakistan team management did not make any mistake in reading the pitch.

“Anyone who looked at the wicket would have thought it would be a seaming track. We can't do anything about the fact it didn't behave that way. We didn't make a mistake reading the pitch, it just didn't play like we thought it should," Mahmood added.

Azhar Mahmood slams Pakistan's bowlers

Azhar Mahmood also lashed out at Pakistan's bowling line-up for poor use of the second new ball and said that the bowlers strayed away from the plan which did not help their cause.

"We were not disciplined enough in the last 12 overs. If you assess the overall day, we were great in 80 overs. With the second new ball, we strayed from the plan. Then they attacked. We allowed them to play that type of cricket. But you can also score runs easier off the new ball, and they utilised that to great effect," he added.

Bangladesh sneak ahead in the first Test

The pitch turned out to be extremely flat as it has been in Rawalpindi over the years. Pakistan declared their innings on 448-6, which included brilliant hundreds from Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan.

In reply, Bangladesh lost two early wickets but kept on piling runs through brilliant performances from their middle-order batters. At the time of writing, Bangladesh had already crossed 500 runs and were closing in on a brilliant first innings score. Experienced batter Mushfiqur Rahim was also closing in on a historic double-hundred.