Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman, Ramiz Raja has slammed the Rawalpindi pitch after England destroyed Pakistan’s bowling lineup on the first day of the test match.
England tore down Pakistan’s bowling lineup completely. Four English batters scored centuries on the first day of the test match. The visitors finished with a record-breaking score of 657 runs. The pitch during England’s innings looked like dead rubber. There was negligible movement for pacers as well as the spinners. Moreover, the surface did not even produce enough bounce.
The Rawalpindi pitch is being highly criticized by fans and critics. People are slamming the conditions by describing them as dangerous for test cricket’s future. PCB Chairman is too unhappy with the pitch conditions. Ramiz Raja went on air, saying that it is embarrassing for him to be the chairman of the board under such circumstances.
“This is not a good advert for cricket,” Ramiz Raja expressed his disappointment
Ever since Ramiz Raja took over as the chairman of the PCB, he has faced a lot of heat for producing flat pitches for test matches. The authorities faced a lot of criticism during the Australian series. Ramiz Raja promised improved conditions for the future series but failed. Now, he has come out in the open to criticize the pitch. He said that they tried a lot of things to improve the situation, but nothing worked.
“It is embarrassing for us, especially when you have a cricketer as chairman. This is not a good advert for cricket. We’re a better cricketing nation than this”
“We live in the dark ages of pitches in Pakistan. We’ve tried everything, bringing in a curator from abroad. Pitches are the lifeblood of cricket in a country, but having said that, I’ve never seen batting like England’s on Day 1 either”
Ramiz Raja went on to say that they tried to bring drop-in pitches from abroad, but it’s too expensive. Hence, they will try to develop the soil by themselves.
“Ultimately, the only situation is a drop-in pitch. Which is extremely expensive if we’re bringing it from abroad. Instead, we’re developing soil here for drop-in pitches. That way, we can prepare square turners or bouncy wickets depending on what we want”
He further informed that the change will take some time, and it might be until next season that we can expect a difference.
“This will improve by next season. Unfortunately we’ll see the same kinds of pitches for the New Zealand series.”
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