Pakistan captain Shan Masood has backed the decision of his team going without a spinner in the first Test against Bangladesh at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. Pakistan lost a Test match to Bangladesh for the first time after they were blown away in their second batting on Day 5 of the game.
The hosts were bowled out for just 146 with the Bangladesh spinners Shakib Al Hasan and Mehidy Hasan Miraz sharing seven wickets. However, Pakistan did not play any specialist spinner as they released Abrar Ahmed. The only spinner in their playing XI for the Rawalpindi Test was batting all-rounder Agha Salman, who delivered 42.3 overs without any wickets to his name.
However, Masood has defended the call to go without a specialist spinner, saying that his team expected pacers to have a major role. "We had anticipated the pitch to offer more assistance to the seamers. Looking at the pitch, we expected it to do more,” he said at the post-match conference.
"If we played 3 fast bowlers, we would be pushing them to the limit and the spinner would be bowling 25-30 overs a day, which we wanted to avoid. We thought that with the weather, it may not even last the full 5 days. At the end of the day, we got it wrong," he added.
The Pakistan skipper also opened up on the decision to declare the first innings when his team was placed at 448/6 and Mohammad Rizwan unbeaten at 171. "We wanted to go for a win in the match and thus felt we had enough runs on the board to declare. But the Bangladesh batters showed a lot of discipline and intent in their first innings. Mushfiq and Miraz batted really well," he added.
"We felt that with 448 runs we could get a crack at them in the fourth innings. We could have done with more runs but there were also things with the ball and in the field that we could’ve done better to either take a lead or keep them at par," he added.
Bangladesh won the match after chasing down 30 without losing a wicket. This was their first Test win against Pakistan. They lead the two-match series 1-0 with a game to go which will begin on August 30.
