‘We’ll try to give spinners an advantage once more’ – Saud Shakeel on Rawalpindi pitch

Saud Shakeel. (Source – Twitter/X)

After suffering a defeat in the first Test against England in Multan, Pakistan prepared a spin-friendly surface for the second game, which favoured them significantly as the hosts won by 152 runs. After losing the series against Bangladesh and the first Test against England, Pakistan were under tremendous pressure to bounce back and Shan Masood’s captaincy was on the line as well.

Since the tactics of playing on a slow surface worked, Pakistan will once again try the same formula in the third Test in Rawalpindi. They are preparing a dry pitch, which will favour the spinners as the Masood-led side is now eyeing to win the third Test and seal the series. Ahead of that, vice-captain Saud Shakeel stated the importance of taking advantage of the home condition and added that the win in the last game gave a massive morale boost to all the players.

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“We should look at pitches for series to series and match to match. And we’ve come to realise this quite late. If you want to prepare for SENA [series in South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia], you can do it during practice and first-class cricket. If there’s first-class cricket before South Africa, we could prepare those kinds of pitches there. But we should prepare pitches and conditions series-by-series, and according to the opposition,” Shakeel was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.

“Our comeback in the second game gave us a really good morale boost. A win is always very helpful in creating a positive atmosphere. We’ll try to give spinners an advantage once more because they struggled with that in the second Test,” he added.

If there’s a spinning pitch, we may go with three spinners again: Shakeel

Analysing the condition, England have named three spinners in their playing XI for the third Test. Shakeel revealed that the team management hasn’t finalized the squad but if the surface looks spin-friendly, they will once again play three spinners.

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“I can’t say at the moment, because we haven’t discussed this. If there’s a spinning pitch, we may go with three spinners again,” Shakeel said.