Pakistan's miserable Test performance against SA

[Riaz Haq]

I am really sad to see hapless Pakistan being crushed by South Africa in the Test series at home. It seems that after playing ODIs and 2020 cricket, our players have forgotten what test cricket is about. Maybe the skills, the training and the temperament required for test cricket are so different that comparing the two forms is like comparing marathon with sprint. Should we field different teams (with may be just a few common players) in the two forms of cricket? After all, we are large country and we do have a lot of talented players. What do you think?

[Riaz Haq]

Well, the second test ends in draw handing a well-deserved series win to SA. But I think our players somewhat redeemed themselves toward the end showing some backbone and fighting spirit. Inzimam ended his illustrious career that began with the World Cup win in 1992. I still remember his powerful batting in the semi and the final in 1992 WC. I wish him well and hope Shoaib Malik will go on to build an even better record of accomplishment.

[Riaz Qamar]

I personally believe that there are numerous reasons for gradual decline in the performance of our Team. The foremost being that the number of grounds in big cities like Karachi and Lahore (which used to be once our main contributers) are not sufficient. You'll find a lot of schools in Pakistan but they don't support any kind of co-curricular activities. It may sound a bit offensive but I don't see much interest of our younger generation specially people between 12-15 towards the game. The reason for this is our continuing dismal performance. As far as twenty20 is concerned its a different ball game altogether. You can see Australia's performace now against India with was lack lustre in the worldcup. I don't want to take any credits from our team for their great show in twenty20 worldcup but as far as the "REAL" cricket which is test cricket is concerned we have fallen behind. We do rely on certain players, the amnesty to Shoaib with merely a ban and a charge is an indication that either there is deficiency of potent cricketers to take the stage or our cricket board is doing nothing.