|
Lahore: Former captain Hanif Mohammed says had Pakistan batsmen practised on matting pitches before going to South Africa, as suggested by him, they would not have struggled on the fast and bouncy pitches there.
Pakistan lost 0-3 in the recently concluded three-Test series.
“I had advised they practice on matting pitches but I don’t know what happened... May be because of the tight schedule of the players and shortage of time but it would have helped them definitely,” Hanif said.
The legendary opener said playing on matting wickets would have helped batsmen to cope with unusual bounce and lateral movement.
“Playing 10 to 15 days on matting wickets would have helped them a lot,” said Hanif.
He pointed out that Pakistani batsmen had failed in South Africa because they played against a very strong opposition with a very strong bowling attack after a long time and on pitches that had pace, bounce and sideways movement.
“It was not an easy series at all for our players and what is done is done. They must now only think and focus on the coming T20 and ODI series. I believe we have a better team for these formats,” Hanif said.
He was confident that Pakistan would do better in the coming one-day series and could even win the T20 and ODI series.
Hanif also refused to lay the entire blame on foreign coach Dav Whatmore.
“Look a coach can only guide and tell the players what to do and communicate easily with them. And I strongly believe that Whatmore or for that matter any other foreign coach will have to learn the Urdu language if he wants to be successful in Pakistan.
| 
