Former Pakistan cricketer Shoaib Akhtar. (FILE photo)Former Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar made a scathing attack on the Pakistan cricket team and the newly appointed head Coach Mike Hesson after the loss of the ODI series against the West Indies. While Pakistan did manage to win the first ODI and the second one was a decent game, it was the third ODI where the Men in Green completely fell apart. Chasing 295 runs, Pakistan were bundled out for 92 runs. Akthar said that in bowling-friendly conditions, Pakistan batters are not equipped to play well.
“Mike Hesson is a good T20 coach, but I don’t know what qualities he has for ODIs. In this format, if you don’t play quality players, this is what will happen,” Akhtar said after the game as quoted by Cricket Pakistan. “Unless you field established all-rounders, batters, bowlers, and spinners, you won’t get a complete 50 overs. You can’t just scrape by in this format,” he added.
“This is the result of bad policies, not the players’ fault. Your players will always be exposed on seaming tracks. Now this rebuilding process has been given a new name, making a combination,” he remarked. “Be thankful Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc weren’t here. Wherever such conditions exist, our players will be exposed,” Akhtar concluded.
“We understood this was the third game given a Test across four innings was played on this deck. The momentum in the last 10 overs took it away as we were on top for the first 40 overs. We thought 220 was chaseable here. The credit goes to them. Credit to Hope. The execution was good but the edges went in their favour. Hope batted well and played some good shots,” said Mohammad Rizwan after the game.
Shai Hope scored a blistering ton in the first innings to help West Indies to get to a 294 on spicy track. “It was very important for us to go deep. You want to set the tone in PP. I wanted to give the team the best finish as well. We have struggled at times. We had 270-280 in mind. We had wickets in hand, wanted to capitalize. Justin came in and played well. We had a pretty complete game today,” Hope said after the game.
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