Sikandar Bakht. Photo- Twitter
Sikandar Bakht. Photo- Twitter

Sikandar Bakht, a Pakistan cricket commentator, has revealed the reason behind Pakistan players no keen on focusing on Test cricket. His words come after Pakistan suffered an embarrassing 0-2 series loss to Bangladesh for the first time in Test history.

Pakistan has been extremely poor in Test cricket for the past couple of years, even in home conditions. They have lost the Test series to Australia, got white-washed by England, and played a draw against New Zealand.

However, their lowest ebb came when Bangladesh defeated Pakistan in the first Test in Rawalpindi by 10 wickets and then conquered the second Test by 6 wickets. This was after Pakistan had Bangladesh 26/6 in the first innings of the second Test in Rawalpindi on day one.

This loss to Bangladesh ended Pakistan’s hopes of qualifying for the WTC 2025 final. They have been pushed to the 8th spot in the WTC rankings and despite having 7 Tests in hand, Pakistan won’t be able to qualify for the summit clash.

“If you’re not getting enough test cricket away or home, then what do you do?”- Sikandar Bakht on Pakistan players’ poor performance

Sikandar Bakht, the eminent Pakistani commentator, highlighted that the issue is not that Pakistan players don’t perform in Test cricket, but the point is Pakistan is not getting enough Tests in a calendar cycle for it to matter.

He said that if Pakistan is playing only a few Tests, why blame the players for not giving it their all while prepping for Test cricket?

“Tell me, the ICC test championship table shows the standings and they do have a criterion of how they assess the number of points or a minimum number of test matches. But do all the test-playing nations get the same number of games? So, if Pakistan has played nine games, including these two, or I don’t know ten, nine, in three years, then what are we preparing for? Why should we prepare for that? If you’re only having white ball cricket, who is to be blamed?” Sikandar Bakht said on PakPassion.

To prove his point, Bakht recalled that Pakistan played just one Test in the 2021-22 season, against New Zealand.

“If you’re not getting enough test cricket away or home, then what do you do? I remember, was it 2022 or 2021, I was on commentary, and we were in a series, if I’m not wrong, please don’t catch me on this, we were playing New Zealand, a couple of test matches, and the last test match was in January. And that was the last test match that year. Only one test match in the whole calendar year,” Sikandar Bakht added.

Meanwhile, Pakistan will now prepare for a three-Test series against England in October. The Pakistan team players are currently playing in the domestic Champions One-day Cup.

Also Read: “Open Your Eyes”- Basit Ali Slams PCB Chairman Following Sourav Ganguly’s Comments