Rawalpindi cricket stadium’s pitch continues to be the center of criticism from analysts, Ex-cricketers, and Cricket Pandits for three days, but Pakistan failed to face England’s boldness in the field despite dead pitch. The English team’s positive attitude and will to win, make it result oriented. On one side as per the directions of Pakistan teams management dead pitch was a reflection of the negative thinking, whereas, on the other side after declaring their 2nd innings on 264/7 runs giving Pakistan an achievable target of 343 shows a positive mindset of the English team.
There was a clear difference in the mindsets of both teams. The English team was on the ground to win only, whereas, the Pakistani team was looking to save themselves. Chasing the target of 343 runs at one stage Pakistan was in a position to win the match, but at that point, James Anderson and Robinson came in and gave the English team a 74 runs victory over Pakistan and taking a lead of 1-0 in ICC Test Championship’s three matches series. In the history of Test cricket, there are very rare cases where a huge number of centuries have been scored, but still, the Test match will prove to be result-oriented and Rawalpindi Test Match is its living example. Where the English Team batting first scored 657 runs and Pakistan replied with 579 runs then the English team scored 264/7 and gave Pakistan a challenging total of 343 Runs to win. But in 2nd inning, Pakistan fell short of 74 and England won the Match.
Talking to the Media after the loss to England, Pakistan’s Captain Babar Azam showed disappointment over the loss, especially when England declared the inning and there was a chance to win the match. Responding to a question Babar Azam said the partnership was the key to winning the game but they failed to do so.
Babar Azam defended the decision to play four debut players according to the conditions and he added that it was the best available eleven.
On the question about the pitch, Babar said the team management gave their input while preparing the pitch but the end result was not according to our requirements he also added that they were expecting some spin in the pitch but surprisingly it was not.
