Pakistan’s Test skipper, Shan Masood was gutted to see his side suffer an innings defeat to England in the first Test at Multan, despite scoring 556 runs in the first innings.
Pakistan became the first side in Test cricket’s history to be on the losing side after scoring over 500 runs in the first innings. Under Masood’s captaincy, the side are yet to pick up their first win.
“It is disappointing to lose again. England found a way to win the match; they created their window of opportunity. The harsh reality is that test cricket quality sides find a way to win matches,” he told the media after the match on Friday.
The skipper had a fine display with the bat in the first innings where he scored 151 to help set up a big score. But England’s Harry Brook and Joe Root combined to take their score to 823/7 thanks to a triple and a double century respectively. Following Pakistan’s defeat, questions have been asked of his side’s mentality where Masood reveals the side’s plans and shortcomings.
“I wouldn’t say my team is mentally weak but we expected this pitch to break by the third day onwards that is why we prolonged our innings. But at the end of the day, you have to find ways to take 20 wickets and we are not doing that in recent times,” he said.
Shan said the pitch was the same for both sides but a good formula to win Test matches is to put up a good first innings score so that you are in the driving seat in the third and fourth innings and then find windows to take 20 wickets.
He pointed out that Pakistan had played a Test in Multan for the first time since 2022 and didn’t get a chance to interact with the curator or groundsmen.
“Both squads were different this time in Multan. But we need to improve on ways to adapt to conditions and situations every day of a test and find ways to win as pitch changes every day,” he said.
Reflecting on the game, Masood expressed his frustrations with the side repeatedly making the same mistakes which allowed England to regain momentum and find themselves as the victors.
“We can’t blame anyone but ourselves. Where we made lapses they didn’t and capitalised on their opportunities. The pitch character did change on the fourth day when we came to bat as some cracks had opened up and there was a little something for the bowlers with the new ball,” he shared.
Asked about the continuing poor form of Babar Azam and whether it was time to give him a break, Shan said that in Test cricket you hoped that the next innings from a player like Babar would be big.
“But we will sit down and reflect on this test and then make decisions on the squad for the next test,” he added.
(with PTI Inputs)
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