Pakistan coach Intikhab Alam has told his players they must improve their fielding and batting if they are to win the next Test against New Zealand (7/4 to beat Pakistan in the match prices).
The tourists narrowly lost the first Test in Dunedin by 32 runs after failing to chase down 251 to win in their final innings.
Pakistan (4/1 in the outright series winners market) now go into the second Test, starting on Thursday, knowing that they will need to win if they are to be victorious in the three match series.
However, Alam has warned his players they won’t achieve victory if they don’t drastically improve their fielding and their batting, with the top order collapsing in the final innings on Saturday.
“We have to improve our fielding, especially in the slip cordon. We give full credit to the bowlers for the way they bowled in both innings,” said Intikhab.
“We have to improve our batting for the second Test match (in Wellington which begins on Thursday) and also our slip catching.”
The only players for Pakistan who came out of the game with any credit were bowlers Mohammad Aamer, Mohammad Asif and Umar Gul after they had managed to skittle out New Zealand for 153 in their second innings.
While no one within the Pakistan camp has indicated changes will be made the tourists aren’t expected to stick with the same side for the second Test after they managed to throw away victory from a commanding position.
1 Comment
Qamar Zamir
30th, November 2009 at 3:18 am
Pakistan should have won that game, however once again their poor batting let them down badly. The batting is too weak and quite a few changes should be made, more experienced batsmen are needed to strengthen the top and middle order.
Khurram Manzoor is not good enough at this level, although he's still new he needs alot more batting practice to improve his technique. Imran Farhat is useless, why he is in the test team when he hardly played in the one day series makes me very confused. Fawad alam's position in the team is questionable, he is an alrounder yet he hardly bowls and he bats at such a key position (3) with very less experience. Malik's continuous inclusion in the team is dumbfounding, he has had a very poor year with the bat, he also doesn't bowl, so he needs to be dropped very quickly so that he can go away and regain form if he ever wants to play in the team again.
The bowling unit for Pakistan was very impressive in the first test, a very good return for Asif, though Kaneria needs to be brought back, as he is a very good and experienced test bowler who can trouble the Kiwi batsmen.
Overall the changes need to come in the batting department, with Misbah coming back it should add a little more solidarity to the middle order, and Butt needs to be brought back as one of the openers.
Pakistan also need 1 or 2 good solid allrounders, in the form of either Afridi or Razzaq, however at the moment there services are just restricted to the limited overs format of the game which is a shame.