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Shoaib Akhtar (Source: Twitter)
The Pakistan Cricket Board has come under fire for curating a completely flat wicket in Rawalpindi Stadium. The wicket had no assistance for bowlers whatsoever. As a result, England was able to take complete advantage of the conditions after choosing to bat first. The team led by Ben Stokes scored 657 runs in the first innings, with four batters scoring centuries.
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Openers, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, along with Ollie Pope and Harry Brook, all scored centuries. Apart from this, the English team broke many records, including the highest score on a single day of a Test match (506 runs).
Former fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar brutally mocked Babar Azam and his team, saying they were lucky that English batters were sick and went on to score 500 runs. They would have made matters worse for the hosts if they had been in better shape.
Notably, reports indicated that the match would be rescheduled due to illness among the English players. The match was given a green flag, however, because the three lions were able to field a Playing XI.
"Shukar hai abhi England team ki tabiyat kharab hai. Ye tabiyat theek nahi hai to 500 maar diye hai, theek hote to bhut bura haal karte (Pakistan should feel lucky that English players were sick, in their sickness they scored 500. Had they been perfectly fine, they would have thrashed us even badly),” Akhtar said in a video posted on his Twitter handle.
Here is Shoaib Akhtar's video
Kharab tabiyat pay hamara yeh haal kia hai England k players nay. Yeh theek hotay toh kya kertay. pic.twitter.com/rr8fUhBgzY
— Shoaib Akhtar (@shoaib100mph) December 1, 2022
On a more serious note, Akhtar stated that he had nothing against fast bowlers because they were all T20 specialists and needed to put in the hard yards in the nets to become Test bowlers. It's a historically significant series.
For the first time in 17 years, English players have arrived in Pakistan for a red-ball series, and the PCB wanted to make their stay memorable, even at the expense of their own team, according to Akhtar.