RAWALPINDI, AUG 25: Pakistan’s red-ball captain Shan Masood reacted after losing the first Test against Bangladesh by 10 wickets at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Sunday.
Chasing the 30-run target after bowling Pakistan out for 148 runs during their second innings, the visitors had no trouble as Zakir Hasan (15) and Shadman Islam (9) guided the visitors to the target in just 6.3 overs.
This was the first time Bangladesh defeated Pakistan in a Test match as the previous 13 meetings between the two sides ended in 12 victories for Pakistan and one match was drawn.
Talking after the match, Masood opened up on the decision to go with four pacers saying that the weather did not help and it turned out to be wrong.
“Looking at the pitch, we expected it to do more. If we played 3 fast bowlers, we would be pushing them to the limit and the spinner would be bowling 25-30 overs a day, which we wanted to avoid. We thought that with the weather, it may not even last the full 5 days. At the end of the day, we got it wrong,” Masood said.
“There’s always room for a spinner but you have to look at the whole XI. We lost Aamir Jamal who offers something with both bat & ball so we had to play 4 all-out seamers. When we played in Sydney and we thought we needed a front-line spinner, Sajid Khan played there. We’ll assess the pitch & conditions and see the best team we can play.”
Pakistan declared at 448-6 during their first innings while Mohammad Rizwan was at the crease with 171 runs, Masood stated that the decision was taken to push the game forward.
“Hindsight’s 20/20. The reason for the declaration was a positive push – to push the game forward and hopefully have a crack at them in the 4th innings. We could have done with those runs but there were also things with the ball and in the field that we could’ve done better to either take a lead or keep them at par,” he added.
The second Test between both the sides will now be played from August 30 at the same venue.
