Former all-rounder and currently the bowling coach of Pakistan, Azhar Mahmood feels that the current bowling set up of Pakistan Cricket team is blessed with bowlers possessing fantastic mentality. Praising his bowlers, Mahmood added that not only they can execute the plans efficiently in the middle; they can deliver on the field as well. Pakistan has produced many renowned pace bowlers in the recent past. Bowling with good pace and accuracy, they are always a good bowling unit to reckon.
In a recent chat, while talking about the wicket-taking approach in the white ball game, Azhar Mahmood said:
“It’s not rocket-science to realize that in the modern-day LOI game, where boundaries are small, and bats are big, it is absolute madness to think that you can simply contain a top-quality opposition team by drying out runs. The only real way to stop runs from being scored against you is by taking wickets.”
Citing examples from the past performances, Azhar remarked that that bowling attack is capable of picking wickets at any stage of the game no matter who is the opponent. He also stressed on the remarkable bench strength Pakistan Cricket Team possess.
“With this bowling line-up, we are confident of taking wickets at every stage of the game regardless of how well the opposition is doing at that time. The proof of our recent progress is in the fact that in the last 9 ODI games, the most any team has scored against us is 236 which is a great sign for Pakistan cricket. On top of that, our bench-strength is improving rapidly with each backup player who is called up performing really well when given the chance,” the 42-year-old cricketer added.
However, Azhar Mahmood expressed his disappointment that his side failed to bowl well in both the innings of The Tests. Notably, Pakistan Cricket team recently lost to Sri Lanka 0-2 in Dubai.
“Obviously, we were thoroughly disappointed by the loss of both Tests in the home series against Sri Lanka, but the fact of the matter is that we did not bowl well in both innings of the Tests. Again, this is not an attempt to look for excuses, but the guys were playing Tests after a long time as our last game had been in May of this year and that rustiness showed up against Sri Lanka,” Mahmood signed off.
Pakistan Cricket team will play a three-match T20I series against the touring West Indies later this month. However, the tour can get postponed due to bad weather conditions in Lahore.