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Friday March 29, 2024

Series should have been more than two Tests

By Our Correspondent
December 16, 2019

ISLAMABAD: it is nothing less than a big injustice to cricket fans and even to those youngsters breaking into Test arena to have a two-match series at home.

The two-Test series not only curtailed the possibilities of rubber’s outcome but also puts break on the true progress of young cricketers at the outset of their career.

With the opening Test at the Pindi Stadium failing to produce results mainly due to inclement weather, all eyes have now been focused on the second and last Test of the series starting at the National Stadium Karachi from December 19. The Test at Pindi hardly provides opportunities to fans to enjoy cricket nor presented enough time to new comers like Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah or Usman Shinwari to make full use of their potential. Luckily debutant Abid Ali made full use of his poetical as a batsman on the sunny final day that saw a packed housing watching his heroics with the bat as he stroked to delightful century and become the first ever Test batsman to score centuries on debut in Test and one-day cricket.

Surely cricket is more about records and no one enjoyed it more than the likes of Javed Miandad who made full use of three-match debut Test series against New Zealand in 1976 to score over 500 runs and announce his arrival at Test arena. With two-match series, scoring such big aggregate totals are almost impossible. Things even got worse when one of the two Tests got washed out as it happens in the ongoing series. Fans also get minimum opportunities to watch their heroes in action. But more importantly young players get restricted stage to make full use of their potential in front of their home crowd.

One wonders what prompted previous Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to opt for two-match series. Same happened against Australia where another Test could have helped Pakistan batsman to get into competitive mod.

Here again against Sri Lanka, two Test matches are not enough to show full potential on wickets where they these home grown players played all their domestic cricket.

“We are trying to convince Cricket Australia (CA) to restart playing three-match series. Though the FTP for bilateral series is till 2023, Waseem Khan during his recent visit to Australia has convinced CA to play three-match series during their 2022 visit to Pakistan, a PCB spokesman when contacted said.