In a historic turn of events, the touring Bangladesh Team won the 2 Test match series against Pakistan. This is a new low for Pakistan cricket as Bangladesh in their history of Test cricket had never won a single Test match against Pakistan in Pakistan.

Bangladesh extended Pakistan’s miserable home record in Tests to 10 matches without a win.

A series whitewash of 2-0 has come as a big shocker to Pakistan Cricket which is currently struggling with form and internal feuds among players

Recent Past performances

Australia toured Pakistan after close to 23 years and won the series.

England too toured Pakistan after many years only to embarrass Pakistan with a 3-0 whitewash.

In the following New Zealand series, Flat pitches were made that were belters just to avoid another embarrassing series loss, a fact even the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) admitted.

The Pakistan Cricket Board, clearly on the back foot with a poor record on home soil, tried again to make similar flat pitches to counter the Bangladesh touring team.

But a Smart Bangladeshi team having experience in playing in such conditions used this to their advantage to whitewash Pakistan 2-0.

With zero fans in the stadium even with free entry, overall viewership for Pakistan cricket is at an all-time low for this cricket-crazy nation which clearly shows that Test cricket and ODI cricket are not the preferred format of the game in the country.

While Pakistan had its issues to cope with both on and off the field, Bangladesh came to Pakistan shores with a purpose.

Some Major Highlights of the First Test

• An Impressive century from their most experienced wicket keeper Batsman Mushfiqur Rahman (191) with useful contributions from Shadman, Litton Das, and Mehidy Hasan Miraz saw Bangladesh taking the first innings leads
• In the second innings of the Pakistan batting, Shakib Al Hasan and Mehidy Hasan Miraz sunk the batting lineup to 147 all out.
• Bangladesh won the match with 10 wickets

Some Major Highlights of the second Test

• Shaheen Afridi was surprisingly excluded from the Test. Rumours of Infighting in the Pakistan camp were doing the rounds.
• After scoring 274 in their first innings, Pakistan was on their way to taking on a big lead with Bangladesh tottering at 26/6, only to be rescued by a brilliant century from Linton Das (138) and a fighting half-century from Mehidy Hasan Miraz (78)

• Pakistan again stumbled in the second innings with only 172 on board with Pacers Hasan Mahmud (5wkts) and Nahid Rana( 4wkts ) ratting the Pakistan second innings
• A confident Bangladesh then went on to score 185 runs losing only 4 wickets to register a 2-0 Whitewash

The seniors from Bangladesh, Mushfiqur Rahim and Litton Dad stepped up their game which was missing from the Pakistan seniors in the series.

Mehidy Hasan was the player of the series for his all-round contribution with both bat and ball. This was the youngster’s first man of the series award outside Bangladesh.

Defensive approach

Pakistan batted defensively and looked like they wanted to play for a draw. Bangladesh had other plans and went for a win.

This difference in intent was seen in both camps.

Bangladesh had never won a Test against Pakistan in Pakistan. A series win is just icing on the cake.

This is only Bangladesh’s third away series win in 33 attempts, having also beaten the West Indies in 2009 and Zimbabwe three years ago.

Pakistan Cricket ignores all forms of cricket except for T20 tournaments

With every new cricket administration team under a new Pakistan political regime, lot of positive changes are promised within Pakistan Cricket.  But no major changes are seen.

Pakistan’s lack of focus on Test cricket is evident with empty cricket stadiums for International Test cricket matches.

This is surprising, with Test cricket rarely being played in the country due to the unwillingness of the touring team to visit due to safety reasons.

In the recently concluded series too, even with free entry for spectators to the stadium, the stadiums were empty.

Does Pakistan even care about Test cricket?

In the past few years, Pakistan’s obsession with T20 Cricket and The Pakistan Super League not only sidelined Test Cricket, it also sidelined ODI cricket and long-format domestic cricket.

The PSL with no major current international players participating also slowly becoming unpopular.

In the T20 format, with only 4 overs to bowl, fast bowlers in Pakistan prefer the shorter version making them complacent and unfit for the longer format games.

For most of the last decade, due to Political instability, and security concerns, visiting teams have been reluctant to travel to the country especially, after the attack on the touring Sri Lankan team in 2009.

The United Arab Emirates became the new home for Pakistan cricket.

While cricket continued for Pakistan in UAE, there was a complete shutdown of domestic cricket in Pakistan due to a faulty Cricket board administration focussing on PSL over International cricket in Pakistan.

The pitches in Pakistan historically were very good both for the batsmen and the bowlers due to the good bounce. Pacers strived and made a name for themselves in the past.

In recent years, the scenarios have changed, pitches are flat dead and slow which does not help the pacers. This reflects the lack of attention to Pakistan’s domestic game.

An Average pace bowler in Pakistan bowled at 130-135 km/hr.  Some even touched 150+ km/hr, but now the bowlers are in their mid-120s, thanks to the unfriendly pitches they are confronted with.

Post-pandemic, the situation worsened in Pakistan cricket with the PCB administration getting shuffled and changed at the drop of a hat. And with every new PCB admin team making tall claims of improving Pakistan Cricket.

Recent Embarrassments

• Losing to Afghanistan in the ODI World Cup
• Losing to the USA in T20 World Cup
• Now, The Whitewash series loss to Bangladesh

Rumors of discord and infighting in the Pakistan national team have been doing the rounds since the World Cup in India.

A video involving captain Shan Masood and star pacer Shaheen Afridi has gone viral, which has got the internet speculating that all is not well in Pakistan cricket.

In the video, Shan was standing next to Shaheen during a team hurdle when the latter removed the former’s arms from his shoulders.