Ramiz fears for tough competition ahead for Pakistan

• Ramiz Raja fears the green-shirts will face a very tough competition when they take-on Australia in the upcoming series.
• Raja says the loss to Sri Lanka was expected as Pakistan team played fearfully in the whole series.

ISLAMABAD: After Pakistan team was whitewashed by Sri Lanka 0-3 in the Twenty20 home series, former skipper Ramiz Raja fears the green-shirts would face a very tough competition when they take-on Australia in the upcoming series next month.

“The loss to Sri Lanka was expected as Pakistan team played fearfully in the whole series,” he said on his YouTube Channel.

Pakistan’s upcoming series against Australia, Ramiz said was going to be tough and it would be impossible to beat Australia in their home ground. “The poor selection policy had destroyed Pakistan T20 team’s rhythm in the game,” he said.

Despite being termed as a B team, Sri Lanka outplayed Pakistan in all three departments to clinch the series. Ramiz, who appeared in 57 Test matches, said Pakistan team lacked power-hitting and killer-instinct in the series.

“There were many problems in the selection of players which needs to be addressed. Either it was the change in the management or the experiments which were undertaken in the team that cost Pakistan the series,” he said and added Shadab Khan not being in form was also one of the reasons for the T20 series defeat.

Ramiz, who played 198 matches, said head coach and chief selector Misbah-ul-Haq was under tremendous pressure as Pakistan failed to perform in all departments against Sri Lanka. “I have said before and I am saying it again that Misbah has been overburdened by handing him the coaching responsibilities of all formats. We need to bring in a power-hitting coach for the shorter format of the game, to correct the direction of the players,” he said.

Ramiz said Harris Sohail was benched in the first 2 matches while skipper Sarfraz Ahmed coming at No. 4 was a mistake. “We fielded poorly, dropped catches and just hit 4 sixes in the series,” he said.