Overview:
Captain Shan Masood scored 90 and 111 in his last two County Championship games for Leicestershire while wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan struck a century in his only first-class game last week in a domestic tournament.
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan players go into the first test with little experience of red-ball cricket since they lost to the West Indies in Multan in late January and drew the series 1-1. Premier batter Babar Azam and fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi, who hasn’t played a test match for a year, haven’t played a first-class game over the last nine months.
Captain Shan Masood scored 90 and 111 in his last two County Championship games for Leicestershire while wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan struck a century in his only first-class game last week in a domestic tournament.
But Masood was not overthinking about lack of his players competing in first-class games.
“It will be a good yardstick for us to play against them, especially if we can get a good result against them,” Masood said. “We couldn’t ask for a better opportunity.”
Masood defended Pakistan’s decision to go with spin-friendly wickets.
“We have introduced spin favorable conditions at home,” he said. “If you need to do well in the WTC, home form matters a lot, and you have to complement that with away series results. My focus is now on how to get good results over the next 10 days of cricket.”
Off-spinner Sajid Khan, who bagged 19 wickets in the two test wins over England on rank-turners and another 15 against the West Indies in two games, was still recovering from a viral infection. Masood said a final decision on Khan’s inclusion will be taken on Sunday morning.
An alternative for Pakistan could be giving a debut to 38-year-old left-arm spinner Asif Afridi.
