‘Pakistan should think about having separate Test, ODI teams’
By Waheed Khan
KARACHI: Former Test captain and fast bowling legend Waqar Younis believes that Pakistan should start thinking about having separate teams for Test and One-day International (ODI) cricket and try to give more rest to its senior players.
“I think there is nothing wrong in thinking on suc lines. May be we can manage it, and may be not. But it’s something we should look into for the future, specially the next World Cup,” Waqar said in an interview in Karachi.
Waqar, who retired after the 2003 World Cup in South Africa with 373 wickets in 87 Tests and 416 in 262 One-day Internationals, however, rejected the concept of having separate captains for Test and one-day teams.
“No, I don’t think that’s a viable idea. Inzamam-ul-Haq is still a learning captain but he has done a fine job binding the team together. I don’t think this idea of separate captains will work in our culture, particularly when Inzamam is such a senior player and has produced good results,” he said.
But the former fast bowler, who terrorised the best batsmen in the world with his toe crushing yorkers and quick reverse swing, agreed Pakistan should look at rotating their major players sooner or later. “We could not do this until how because we don’t have the back-up talent that is available to countries like Australia. We face a different situation as far as replacements are concerned. But definitely we must look at some point of time giving rest to our senior players like Inzamam, Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan as so much depends on them.”
Waqar, who is in the run to be appointed as bowling coach of the national team, didn’t feel there was a need to press the panic button after the one-day series loss to India. “We tend to criticise our team too much after any loss. We’ve lost just one series and everyone goes through a bad patch. We’ve a very good unit and we need to be patient at times with them. For the last one and a half year they’ve been doing well under Inzamam,” he noted.
Waqar, however, made it clear that the coming tour to Sri Lanka where Pakistan plays two Tests and three one-dayers would not be easy at all. “Sri Lanka is one of the hardest sides to beat in their own backyard. Pakistan should go well prepared for the series as the weather conditions make a big difference in Sri Lanka as it’s very hot and humid there,” he opined.
“I enjoyed bowling in Sri Lankan conditions but we must be careful and not take things lightly. I’ve no doubt we’ve a side that should do well on the coming tour but for that to happen we need to take the Sri Lankans very seriously,” he added.
The heading of the article might paint a wrong impression, but the actual included content paves us the right way, as more emphasis is placed on the rotation policy, once again. Although it will be quite hard to entirely segregate the players on both sides of the pendulum (as in separating the teams for ODI’s and Tests), fluctuating between the vast pool of quality players, as well as providing equal deserving chances to many-a-few youngsters coming up after their memorable golden days from Galli Muhalla cricket, this strategy will not only help build their skillset in a tremendous fashion, but will more likely open their doors in the International market, as their careers continue to grow onward.