Pakistan’s former captain and legendary batsman, Hanif Mohammad has come out in defence of the national team after their disastrous performance in the Test series against South Africa and said that the Green Shirts lost to a far superior team.
Before the start of the three-match series, the cricket fans were anticipating a competitive battle between Pakistan and the hosts. However, apart from the Cape Town Test, where the visitors showed a lot of fight, they failed to live up to the expectations as the home team won the series by a dominating margin of 3-0.
Misbah-ul-Haq and company have been slammed by a number of sporting analysts and former cricketers but Hanif is of the view that the Proteas are a much better team and they thoroughly deserved to win the series.
The legendary cricketer is of the opinion that the Green Shirts should forget about the misery of the Test series and focus on the upcoming limited-overs series.
“Team Pakistan lost to a far superior side in the Test series,” the legendary cricketer expressed. “Pakistan fought very hard in the 2nd Test match. Another 70-80 runs would have done it for Pakistan. What’s gone, cannot be traced back! We should all look forward to the T20I and ODI series.”
Hanif, who is considered to be among the greatest batsmen produced by the country, believes that Pakistan is a much better team in the shorter formats of the game and they should be able to end the tour on a positive note by winning the T20s and the ODIs.
The former captain feels that Pakistan’s batsmen were helpless against a world-class bowling attack.
“I’m confident that Pakistan will perform much better in the limited overs’ series. Pakistan’s limited overs’ team is balanced and is capable of beating South Africa. It was tough for the Pakistani batsmen. They had never played on such pitches before. The South African bowlers bowled impressively and justified their No.1 Test status,” Hanif added.
The limited-overs series begins tomorrow with the first T20 at Durban.
