No chance of Pakistan winning anything in Australia: Aaqib Javed

Fast bowling great Aaqib Javed has said that the current Pakistan side has virtually no chance of winning a single game on their tour of Australia.

Head coach Misbah-ul-Haq recently named a side featuring several newcomers for the series Down Under, and Javed believes the side is too inexperienced and raw to make their mark on such a difficult away assignment.

The Lahore Qalandars coach, in an exclusive interview with Pak Passion, minced no words in offering his assessment of the side.

“Many better-quality sides from Pakistan with top notch world-class players have struggled and failed to win in Australia in the past, so why do we think this side will do any better in the T20Is and Tests in the upcoming tour?” he questioned.

Javed credited Hasan Ali, Shadab Khan, Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez for Pakistan’s rise to number one in the ICC rankings. He said that three of the four have not been picked for the Australia tour, while Shadab has been out of sorts lately, meaning that even the top-ranked T20I side will find it tough to win anything in Australia.

“I do not see this side being able to win the T20I series in Australia and I do not see them winning any matches in the Test series either,” he said.

He also questioned the logic of throwing young speedsters such as Mohammad Musa and Naseem Shah to the lions when they could have been eased in on home turf against Sri Lanka.

“Our young bowlers are used to the lengths that are needed to succeed on home wickets but will have no idea when they are asked to bowl in Australia and that could spell disaster for us,” he added.

Javed recalled that even the supremely talented Mohammad Asif had struggled so tremendously on Australian pitches that the late Bob Woolmer had at the time deemed him “useless”.