SYDNEY: Former Australian skipper Ian Chappell has called on his country’s cricket board not to invite Pakistan for Test series Down Under in future unless the struggling Asian side improve their performance and provide some sort of challenge to the home side.

The Misbah-ul-Haq-led side were whitewashed in the recent three-Test series against Australia, thus disappointing those who had hoped to see a closely-contested series in the light of Pakistan’s impressive form in the UAE.

Pakistan had struggled in all departments of the game, and apart from the final day of the opening Test at the Gabba, they rarely threatened the Australian side.

Criticising Pakistan’s inability to play competitive cricket in the tournament, Chappell warned the Misbah-ul-Haq’s side to either stop playing poor cricket or just stay at home. “Pakistan have now lost 12 Test matches on the trot in Australia, and somebody’s got to give them a kick up the bum. Cricket Australia (CA) have got to start saying ‘listen if things don’t improve, we will stop with the invites,” said Chappell.“You can’t continue to [play poor] cricket. You can’t bowl poorly, have conservative field placings and field sloppily and expect to play decent cricket in Australia,” he added.

The 73-year-old also slammed Misbah’s defensive captaincy, saying that a lot of Pakistan’s struggles were because of no inspiration from the leader. “A lot of their struggles were because they had no leadership. There was no inspiration from Misbah, so things have got to change in Pakistan,” he added.

Chappell also expressed his views on Misbah’s future as a captain. He insisted that if he would have been in selection committee then it would be an end of Misbah’s era. “If I had anything to do with the selection then that will be it for Misbah as the captain, but in Pakistan they do some very strange things, so I wouldn’t bet on it,” he stated.

Published in Dawn January 10th, 2017