PAK 'A' pave way for improvement but will PCB take notice?

Hassan Cheema 12:35 04/08/2015
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  • Shan Masood (l) has benefited from Pakistan 'A' tours in the mould of the England Lions (bottom r).

    In 1992 home teams won 8 Tests and lost 6. The year before that the corresponding numbers had been 8 and 3; the following year they were 13 and 10. This, remember, was the fag end of the era when the cries for neutral umpiring was in full force. This was also the period when teams could doctor home pitches as they wished – a way for the home team (beyond the crowd and other mitigating factors) to make the most of their home advantage.

    Much of that has changed. Homogenous pitches abound; the DRS and ICC’s Elite panel (faced with greater scrutiny than ever before) have made much of what constituted home advantage obsolete. In the era of freelance T20 players and uber-professionalism, the challenges posed by going to faraway lands have become minimal.

    — Saj Sadiq (@Saj_PakPassion) July 20, 2015

    Home comforts
    For all of these changes, you’d think the away sides would have better records, but they don’t. Home teams carry a greater advantage than they did two decades ago. Over the last three years, the hosts have won 64 Tests and lost just 23 – numbers that wouldn’t look out of place in the pre-Packer years.

    Scratch the surface and the reasons become obvious. Whereas once a tour constituted adaptation before performing at the bigger stage, the plethora of international cricket has made the time required for adaptation nigh on impossible. Whereas players going to England today would feel far more at home than they did 20 years ago, the opportunities they get to test themselves are fewer. Think for instance of Pakistan’s tours there. In 1992, Pakistan played 19 first-class matches (including 5 Tests), meaning that even those Pakistanis who weren’t well-versed in the county game had both the time and opportunity to adjust to the alien conditions. In 2010, beyond the six Tests, Pakistan only played three multi-day matches, one of which was rained off with less than 30 overs bowled. The result was a Pakistani team, particularly the batsmen, unable to adapt to conditions and opposition.

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    Call The A-Team
    There has always been an obvious solution for this. Cricket boards the world over talk up exposing their youngsters and second tier players to foreign conditions but more often than not, that is lip service. However, the success of the England Lions has led other boards to revive their second strings – as shown by the tri-series happening soon between the A teams of India, Australia and South Africa.

    Pakistan, the pariah of international cricket and whose players don’t even have the chance to play against foreign players in their own country, perhaps require a competent and active A team more than most. Alas, that has not been the case for a long time.

    Pakistan A’s tour of Sri Lanka earlier this year was the first time the team had played outside of Pakistan or the UAE in over four years. With Pakistan not firing as tourists, it was a questionable gap that followed the 2010 tours of both the West Indies and Sri Lanka. Unsurprisingly, the 2014 tour ended up doing the trick and Pakistan won an away series (outside of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe) for only the second time in nine years.

    The series win was led not only by the brilliance of Younis Khan and Yasir Shah, but a career-defining innings from Shan Masood as well. After the series against New Zealand last fall he had been dropped, and his technique against spinners (who had removed him in 4 of his 8 Test innings at the time) was being questioned. Were it not for the A team’s excursions he perhaps wouldn’t have had a chance to make his mark in the third Test at Pallekele either, a fact that the player himself recognises.

    Proof is in the pudding
    “The A tour was very significant in me regaining my place back in the Test side,” says Masood. “It makes a lot of difference when you tour a country with the  A side just before the national team tours there as you are familiar with the conditions, and some of the players you are to play against.”

    The reason Masood found himself facing Sri Lanka in the Third Test were two innings against Sri Lanka A just a couple of months prior. The first was a two-hour 38 against a bowling attack that included Dushmantha Chameera and Tharindu Kaushal (both of whom were part of the Sri Lankan team in the Test series). The second was a marathon 182 which became his main case for reselection.

    After being demolished by Kaushal in the Second Test and needing an opener to replace Mohammad Hafeez, Pakistan turned to Masood as their answer to both problems. And although he had been dismissed by Kaushal in one of the matches, that too became a learning experience according to Masood. “Playing Kaushal before in some way helped me cope with his threat in the third Test,” he explains having ended up scoring 54 of his 125 runs in the second innings of the third Test against Kaushal.

    Thus, even if Pakistan A failed to win either the one day or unofficial Test series against Sri Lanka A, the lessons from it paved the way for the senior team’s success. In the ODIs, that lesson was provided by Imad Wasim. With Mohammad Hafeez unable to bowl after the 2nd ODI of the series, Pakistan needed someone to provide the stranglehold in the middle overs that Hafeez has become renowned for. They also needed someone who could provide the balance to the team alongside Shoaib Malik. Wasim had finished the A team’s tour with the best economy rate on either side and has a pretty decent domestic batting record, making him the obvious choice. Once again the performance from the A tour was translated to the bigger stage, with Wasim finishing the series with the 2nd best economy rate (only Angelo Mathews was better).

    Will Pakistan ever learn?
    With Pakistan scheduled to tour Australia, New Zealand and England over the next eighteen months it is clear what the PCB needs to do. The question now is whether they can mess up something so obvious or if they will provide the team with the best possible chances of success.

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