The embattled Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed wants his batsmen to take responsibility during the upcoming tough tour of South Africa.
Talking on the sidelines of a book launching of a senior sports journalist, Sarfraz said on Sunday: “We batted extremely poorly in the series against New Zealand and paid heavily for it. The batsmen have to take responsibility and play long innings in the South Africa series.
This is one big issue that constantly troubled us in the 10 Test matches Pakistan have played since the retirement of Younis [Khan] and Misbah [-ul-Haq].”
The wicket-keeper/batsman said the tour of South Africa would be very demanding and that Pakistan have to improve their performance drastically to challenge the Proteas.
“We did mistakes against New Zealand and they were lot of them But on the upcoming tour we’ll try to avoid them and play positive cricket against South Africa.”
Sarfraz lamented that whenever Pakistan lost, the captain was held responsible for it.
“When we win people usually say Pakistan played brilliantly but when the team loses the same people start blaming the captain. This mindset has got to change because in other countries they don’t press the panic button when they lose.”
Meanwhile, Sarfraz said the cricket board won’t waste much time in removing him as Test captain if Pakistan keep on losing.
“The authorities [PCB} will remove me without further delay if the team lose because of me. It’s not just me the entire team has to step up and good cricket.”
