Pakistan yet to find their Test identity in home soil, says Shan Masood

sanjeev

khelja|14-08-2024

Pakistan are set to play a 2-match Test series against Bangladesh, starting 21 August. Under the captaincy of Shan Masood, Pakistan will try to regain their dominance on home turf after series losses against Australia and England.
Since the restart of cricket in Pakistan, the team has not had good numbers at home and would desperately look to improve under the coaching of Jason Gillespie. Speaking ahead of the Test series, Pakistan captain Shan Masood has said that the team needs to find their identity, their style of playing at home turf, which will improve the results. Pakistan have played against Australia, England and New Zealand at home. All of those matches have been played in drab pitches, where the bowlers barely had any help at all. Pakistan won none of those three series and in fact were hammered by England at home in a clean sweep. "We need more Test cricket," Masood said on the PCB podcast. "For me, it's more about how we can get our team to play more Test matches. That comes down to scheduling, reducing the gaps, and ensuring we have consistent Test squads going forward. We're playing nine Test matches in four months, but we've also had to deal with an unfortunate calendar where we played in Australia, and then we're playing our next Test after ten months. These are challenges that Pakistan cricket needs to address going forward." "If I'm being brutally honest, in home Test matches, because they've been played at different times of the year and against different nations, we still haven't found our ideal way of playing at home that suits our batting, bowling, and overall style," the captain added. The captain said that the rest of the teams hold advantage in home conditions because this Pakistan have only played for 7 years at home. "In Test cricket, which is the ultimate challenge in the game, you have to be familiar with certain conditions," Masood said. "Yes, we've been playing at home since 2019, but other teams have been playing on their home soils for much longer. We still have to decide what our best approach at home is," concluded Masood. Pakistan squad vs Bangladesh Shan Masood (Captain), Abdullah Shafique, Babar Azam, Mohammad Huraira, Saim Ayub, Saud Shakeel, Agha Salman, Kamran Ghulam, Aamer Jamal, Mohammad Rizwan, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Mir Hamza, Abrar Ahmed, Mohammad Ali, Khurram Shahzad, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Afridi
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