Our Test cricket is below par at the moment: Woolmer
By Imran Naeem Ahmad
BANGALORE, March 22: Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer does not seem happy the way his charges are playing and his opinion is forthright and honest: “Our Test cricket is below par at the moment.”
After a 195-run mauling by India in Kolkata last week, his players were going through their paces at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, the scene of the famous Test when Pakistan edged India by 16 runs to win the series. That was 1987; this is 2005 and the least Woolmer’s class can now do is to square the three-match rubber.
With odds firmly stacked against them going into the third Test, doing so would indeed be a tall order for a side that has a second rate attack and whose batsmen are reckless and seem to lack the temperament to stick their ground.
“I don’t think we are playing Test cricket very well at the moment,” remarks Woolmer who took over this team’s charge in June of last year and under whom Pakistan have now lost five of the last seven Tests. Obviously that would have any coach worried.
“We are working every day to make that better, we are getting into good positions where we are not making the most of them. That’s what we have got to work on and make sure that we do better in certain areas,” says the 85,000-pound-a-year coach.
One of the stages when Pakistan got into an encouraging position in Kolkata was when they looked headed for a big first innings lead, having begun the third day at 273-2 replying to India’s 407. But instead of going ahead, they instead conceded a 14-run lead and could not even cash in on champagne centuries by Younis Khan and Yousuf Youhana.
“We have discussed it more than once and the bottom-line is that we have to be more result-oriented and become a winning team. And we have got to make better decisions when they count,” said Woolmer who played 19 Tests for England and coached South Africa between 1994 and 1999.
“It would be unfair to criticize anyone for the defeat. Essentially in the Kolkata Test, we lost the game in certain periods. I thought we did fairly well for many periods, it were just the certain areas where we could not. So we have to strengthen those areas and make sure we do not make the same mistakes again.”
There would indeed be no room to err in this crucial Test and the players will have to be at their very best if they nourish hopes of saving the series. “The boys are not bad cricketers, they are very good. They have to get better at particular skills that we need which is most important.”
“It is an on-going process unfortunately,” he says and adds that Pakistan do not have a Wasim Akram or Waqar Younis or Saqlain Mushtaq. “We do not have genuine great bowlers and in my opinion you do not become a great cricketer overnight; for doing that you need years.”
Pakistan’s depleted attack, without the speed king Shoaib Akhtar, has struggled this far on the tour with the bowlers having to face the flashing blade of the murderous Virender Sehwag, the ruthless Rahul Dravid and the mighty Sachin Tendulkar. Ask Muhammad Khalil or Rana Navedul Hasan or Muhammad Sami for that matter and they would tell you what it is like bowling to them.
“It is the best available attack; getting 20 wickets in a game is about getting the ball in the right areas,” Woolmer points out and then shifts to the state of the pitch. “It looks like a very good batting wicket obviously; I think Bangalore turns out to be a slow turner. I guess we will have to look at the team in that respect.”
Who will be in and who will be out come Thursday, hasn’t been discussed by the Pakistan managers. “We haven’t talked about it yet and it would be unfair for me to make any comment on record.”
Could it be a dull draw in Bangalore? “Well we have got to make the play. It is like being 2-0 down at half time in a football match we have to try and get those goals back and stick one in at the end to win.”
Woolmer refuted the impression that Pakistan had been unable to read the wicket at Kolkata where they went in with three pacers and leg spinner Danish Kaneria with Shahid Afridi as the fifth bowler. On that Eden Gardens pitch Indian leggie Anil Kumble wreaked havoc with the ball, snapping up 7-63.
“I don’t think anyone can read the wicket, it is pretty much a guess. In Kolkata, their off spinner (Harbhajan Singh) was supposed to get 10 wickets in the match, but he got four. So no one really knows.”
