Pakistan skipper, Shan Masood admitted to having requested a flat track for the Multan Test against England. Though the hosts piled up 556 runs batting first, things went down south as England were merciless in their approach when they came out to bat. Joe Root’s 262 and Harry Brook’s 317 took the game away and England declared a humongous score of 823 runs.
In the final session of Day 4, Pakistan lost six wickets and were bundled up before Lunch on Day 5 as England won the game by an innings and 47 runs. Pakistan’s red-ball coach, Jason Gillespie addressing the cries over Pakistan’s slump in Tests argued that the management is just three Tests old and calls regarding the need for change are uncalled for.
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“Please understand that this management, myself included, this is our 3rd Test. It’s very early for us in this space. We’ve looked at past performances and we’re looking at performances right now. Sometimes players are better players when they aren’t on the team. Everyone is crying out for change. I understand that; people want to see results and performances,” said Gillespie as quoted by Cricket Pakistan.
I wasn’t upset with the surface here: Gillespie
Former cricketers such as Kevin Pietersen and Ramiz Raja criticized the Multan track as bowlers struggled to have their say in the game. Raja even went to the extent of saying that this development is destroying Test cricket. However, Gillespie showed no regrets and said that he was happy with the way the deck played out over five days.
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“I wasn’t upset with the surface here. It’s pretty much what we expected and what we thought was going to be the best opportunity to play well in the game. If you look at our first innings, we put up a score of 550 and that part was fine. No one was saying anything about the surface then. It was only when we didn’t get our plans right and execute our skills with the ball that everyone started to talk about the surface,” he concluded.