As Pakistan witnessed a number of premature and sudden retirements in Test cricket, Waqar Younis, the national team bowling coach, has suggested the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) formulate a policy to stop players from abruptly quitting any format of the game.
Retirement of the experienced fast bowlers Mohammad Amir and Wahab Riaz – who quit Test cricket last year to focus on the limited-overs format, was the massive setback for Pakistan, as their bowling weaknesses were badly exposed in Australia where they lost both the Test and T20I series.
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Waqar said in a video conference with reporters on Monday (April 6): “Of course, you can't stop anyone or force anyone. But there should be a policy by the board. If a star player suddenly leaves or drops a format, it's a massive setback for the team.”
Former Pakistan further added, “You're forced to fast-track rookies, which is a big problem and we faced it in absence of Amir and Wahab. I'm not saying we'd have won in Australia with them, but we could have done better, benefiting from their experience.”
Meanwhile, the legendary pacer believes that Pakistan needed a bigger pool of fast bowlers, especially in the white-ball format cricket given the way cricket has expanded these days.
The bowling coach further explained: “The way cricket has expanded, having four-five fast bowlers is not enough. You probably need four-five mature bowlers for test cricket. But for the shorter formats, you need a bigger pool of bowlers, who can share the massive workload.”
Waqar signed off by saying, “Naseem (Shah), Musa (Khan), Haris (Rauf), Dilbar (Hussain)... if we can harness them with Amir, Wahab and (Mohammad) Abbas, I think we can have a battery of 8-10 fast bowlers. And once we have that, we'd never be affected by anyone quitting abruptly and can rotate them.”
(With Reuters Inputs)
