Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief Ramiz Raja has acknowledged that the Pakistan team needs to emulate the England style of aggressive batting in Test matches if it wants to compete with the best after the visitors handed a 74-run defeat to the hosts in the first Test in Rawalpindi.
England stunned everyone after scoring more the 500 runs on day one of the Test on a flat wicket and then bowled well enough to negate the fact that Pakistan had replied with 579 to their total of 657 runs.
Ben Stokes set an exciting target of 343 runs for Babar and his men to chase, but Pakistan was dismissed for 268 and lost by 74 runs.
The second Test match of the three-match series will be played in Multan from December 9 onwards and ahead of the Test match, Ramiz Raja admitted that England’s batting was stunning and they are setting a new trend in Test cricket.
He further compared how kids are taught the game in Asia, which is defensive in nature and said that given how England is batting, even Pakistan needs to bring in T20 players in Tests as well to compete.
Furthermore, he claimed that not only Pakistan, but the entire Asian cricket bloc is behind the rest of the world when it comes to aggression and cited the example of how India was crushed by England in the T20 World Cup 2022 semifinal recently.
He said on Tehlka Sports YouTube channel: “England's performances are an eye-opener for us all. They are setting a new trend and we have to play according to it. They play attacking cricket with clarity of mind, and they don't have fear of failure. Here, when we give a bat to a kid, we teach them that they shouldn't get out. These people are changing this mantra; even if you get out, you play with clarity. If your mission is to score fast then you have to include T20 players (in Tests), which is what they have done. We have to play in a T20 style in a way. The Asian bloc is behind the rest, not just Pakistan. You saw how England defeated India in the semi-final.”
However, his words didn’t sit well with some of the cricket fans on social media and they took Ramiz Raja to task.
Here are some of the tweets:
