Former Pakistan cricketer Mohammad Amir applauded the Shan Masood-led team for their brilliant fight in the second Test against Australia at the MCG. He believes that Pakistan played better cricket than their opposition and that they were unlucky in the game.
Pakistan had a great opportunity to script history and win their first Test in Australia in a long time. However, it could not happen as they failed to capitalize on the decisive moments and suffered a disappointing 79-run defeat to go 2-0 down in the series.
Pakistan, who faced a 360-run defeat in the first match, made a solid comeback and put pressure on Australia. Shan Masood’s team even outplayed the hosts in some phases of the game and even looked like favorites to win the game and level the series.
Pakistan was neck and neck with Australia until the last innings. However, they failed to finish the game from the top and came under pressure. In the first innings, they bowled out their opponents for 310 runs and then in response, they made 264 runs in their first innings.
Pakistan were then all over Australia with the ball in the second innings as they had reduced them to 16/4 and then bundled them out for 262 runs to set themselves a target of 316 runs to chase. Despite getting off to a torrid start with the bat in the second innings, the Shan Masood-led team kept everyone excited.
Captain Shan Masood (60), Babar Azam (41), Saud Shakeel (24), Mohammad Rizwan (35) and Agha Salman (50) did their best but failed to continue the outings they got. At one point, they were doing very well but lost wickets at crucial stages. They were bowled out for just 237 runs and lost the game by 79 runs.
Mohammad Amir believes Pakistan were in a great position to win the match. He also praised captain Shan Masood for his leadership and added that the left-hander will be a great captain for the team. On his Twitter account, he explained:
“Bad luck for the Pakistan team. They played better cricket in this match. I think there is a good chance that Australia and Australia will face me against jeetne ka. But I must say @shani_official will be a great captain for Pakistan.”
Bad luck for Pakistan team. They played better cricket in this match. I think there is a good chance that Australia and Australia will face me against jeetne ka. But I must say @shani_official will be a great captain for Pakistan 🇵🇰.
– Mohammad Amir (@iamamirofficial) December 29, 2023
Notably, Mohammad Hafeez had made a similar kind of claim, stating that the Shan Masood-led team played better cricket than Pat Cummins & Co. at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
“We played better cricket as a team,” said Pakistan team manager Hafeez. “I’m proud of that. The way the team had the courage to attack this match in the best way possible. If I summarize the match, Pakistan team played better than the other team overall.”
AUS vs PAK: There were many positives – Shan Masood after Pakistan’s loss to Australia
Captain Shan Masood spoke about the defeat his team suffered in the second match against Australia. He believes there were many positives in the way his team played, but he is quick to admit that they gave the Australian team a “sniff.”
He added that they are happy with the way the game was played and want to play like that in the future. Shan Masood, while speaking after the match, stated:
“We have to look at the bigger picture. There were many positive aspects. We can easily say, ‘What if we did this? What if we did that?’ That’s all and part of the game process. There were a lot of positives, but if you take a sniff at a quality team like Australia, which we did, maybe sometimes with the bowl, maybe sometimes with the bat, yesterday maybe on the field we knocked someone down in form like Marsh, maybe not I’ve been chasing many today.
“Mistakes happen. More generally, this is the way we want to play Test cricket. Playing Test cricket in these conditions, fighting to the end where a result was possible, that’s something we have to push forward as a team. It is a reflection of four days, the game continued to spin. Sometimes he would follow Australia’s path, other times ours. “We were lucky to win the toss and have the best bowling conditions.”
Pakistan will now be seen in action in the third Test against Australia. The match will take place at the Sydney Cricket Ground on January 3.
