Abu Dhabi: Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur brushed aside that going with three pacer and a specialist spinner in Yasir Shah has back fired on the first day of the first Test against Sri Lanka.
Pakistan could only take four wickets on a day where their fast bowlers never looked like troubling the Sri Lankan batsmen.
“I would say we held us pretty well today. The two areas where I think we lacked a bit was probably the first six overs today and then the last eight of the day. The two booking parts of the day, I felt we were very average and that was disappointing as that’s when we had the new ball,” said Arthur, who was was quick to express his disappointment on the amount of grass that was shaved off from the wicket.
“I was disappointed that they took a little bit more of grass off the wicket than I wanted to take. No regrets of not going in with another spinner. I think we have gone in with what we think is our best bowling attack,” Arthur said, who was of the view that the ball got pretty soft and it didn’t reverse. The coach was pleased with the way his frontline spinner Shah bowled when his speedsters proved ineffective.
“I think there was enough there for Yasir to attack and he has done that. Yasir’s role in the first innings is just to hold for us. Today he became that striker because there was enough for him from the wicket. We were good and okay through those periods of time,” said Arthur, who refused to term Mohammed Amir’s wicket-less performance on day one as worrying signs.
“Amir is a class bowler and his best years are ahead of him. He suffered just a little bit with rhythm early on today. He was probably over striding a little bit and decelerating into the crease. And once we had a message on after two overs, he certainly improved and hit the deck a hard and he got his pace back,” said Arthur, adding that the key was to hit the right areas which his pacers failed to do.
“What we didn’t do earlier on was that we saw a little bit of grass and we thought we can float the ball around and let the ball do the rest. You still got to be banging and hitting the areas hard. Then I thought we adjusted well and got our lines straight. Amir did some good stuff in the middle as well,” noted Arthur, who was confident of his team restricting the visitors under 300 with some early breakthrough on day 2.
“I’m very impressed with Sri Lanka and I knew what we are going to get. They are coming out from where they have a hell of a lot of prove. They are a bunch of talented cricketers and they would have learnt a lot from that India Test series. We are certainly not taking them lightly and have respect for the talent they have got and they showed that today. If we go bang bang tomorrow morning, then we can restrict them under 300 which is going to be good for us.”
