National bowling coach Waqar Younis has said that the absence of experienced quicks during the Test series in Australia last year caused the team a “massive setback”.
He urged the Pakistan Cricket Board to devise a policy to overcome this situation.
“Of course you can’t stop anyone or force anyone. But there should be a policy by the board,” Waqar said, adding, “If a star player suddenly leaves, or drops a format, it’s a massive setback for the team. You’re forced to fast-track rookies, which is a big problem and we faced it in absence of Amir and Wahab.
He clarified that he did not consider their presence as a guaranteed win, but “we could have done better, benefiting from their experience,” he said.
The veteran cricketer feels Pakistan needs a bigger pool of fast bowlers to cope with the demand of limited-overs cricket but he said he was optimistic he could help create one.
“The way cricket has expanded, having four-five fast bowlers is not enough.You probably need four-five mature bowlers for test cricket. But for the shorter formats, you need a bigger pool of bowlers, who can share the massive workload, he said.
“Naseem (Shah), Musa (Khan), Haris (Rauf), Dilbar (Hussain)… if we can harness them with Amir, Wahab and (Mohammad) Abbas, I think we can have a battery of 8-10 fast bowlers. And once we have that, we’d never be affected by anyone quitting abruptly and can rotate them.
