Pakistan's bowling coach Waqar Younis is a happy man right now as he finally met his family at home after having spent seven months without seeing them due to national commitments amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 49-year-old was busy since Pakistan’s tour of England, Australia, and then home series against Zimbabwe followed by a recent tour of New Zealand for another series of matches, resulting in the coach not being able to visit his family due to bio-secure bubble life.
The bowling coach was granted leave by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) after the first Test in New Zealand in order to spend some time with his loved ones ahead of this month's home series two Tests and three T20Is against South Africa starting January 26.
Waqar told reporters in Lahore on Wednesday (January 13): “I didn’t see my family for the last seven months and got permission from the cricket board to spend time with my family. Cricket is not the end of the world. There are also other things in life which are important.”
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The bowling coach also commented on Pakistan’s recent poor tour of New Zealand where they were whitewashed by the hosts 0-2 in the Tests series and suffered a 1-2 loss in the T20I series.
He pointed out it was especially tough for the players to spend 14 days in quarantine while blaming lack of training for the disappointing results against New Zealand.
He further explained, “Medically it’s proven that if you are closed in a room for one day, you have wastage of two days' muscle. They are top athletes, they needed to be trained every day so these issues were also there, because of which we couldn’t win.”
In the Test series, Pakistan pacers Naseem Shah and Shaheen Afridi failed to generate the same speeds as New Zealand’s Kyle Jamieson and Neil Wagner but Waqar isn’t much fascinated for pace, saying taking 20 wickets is more important for him than relying on the pace of the fast bowlers.
He signed off by saying, “Pace is important, and I understand that if you have it, it’s good, but for me how to get 20 wickets is more important. If he is bowling at 140kph and not getting wickets, it’s useless, but if he is bowling at 120kph and taking wickets, it’s good for me. We also had issues of no-balls and dropped catches. We didn’t perform the way we would have wanted.”
(With AP Inputs)
