“Every captain has their own style,” Masood said. “I focus on keeping the environment in the dressing room well; that is my primary concern. I have never seen a lack of unity or effort by the boys. There are some cricketing aspects to how we need to improve, but I have no complaints regarding unity.”
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Masood said players in the longer formats had earned the right to get more time. “Babar Azam is among the world’s best batters. You have to give your players time, not just Babar Azam. Babar doesn’t look out of form, he’s getting starts,” Masood said. “There was a 10-month gap between the Australia and Bangladesh Tests, which doesn’t help us. He played some long innings in the Champions [One-Day] Cup where he absorbed pressure and changed gears. That might help him in Tests now. He’s the team’s number one batter for sure.
“We have to give players a consistent chance and if and when we get Kamran Ghulam in the side, he should also get a long run instead of chopping and changing. We want to consistently back our players, and whoever comes in shouldn’t feel their spot is under threat from the first day.”
“Saim [Ayub] scored two 50s in the last two Tests, if we’d dropped him after the first Test, I’ve had that happen to me; it’s not nice,” he said. “When I was out of the team for two years, I averaged over 60 in List A cricket, but Imam [ul-Haq-] and Fakhar [Zaman] were consistently performing. I didn’t complain that I wasn’t being selected, because I understood the level of competition was high. If the coach was backing the players, they were doing the right thing.
“If I’ve backed a player who ends up becoming a great servant for Pakistan cricket, and he ends up replacing me in the process, I won’t be upset. If I’m backing the right thing, I’ll sleep well at night.”
“Hasnain was bowling really well and [was] a personal standout for me,” Masood said. “If I’m selecting a team, my question to him would be you’re bowling really well, how well can you do in red-ball cricket?’ We should appreciate the skill of fast bowling in Test cricket. It’s the hardest skill and you need to be super fit to execute it so we should appreciate it.
“Fast bowling exerts a huge amount of stress on the body, and wherever I’ve played Test cricket, fast bowlers’ workload is always managed. Injuries with fast bowlers are common so you have to continue building stocks of fast bowlers. Personally, what I’ve said to fast bowlers is they’ll play a huge role in taking 20 wickets. So we’ve set certain standards and protocols so our fast bowlers are the fittest players in our team. That’s the only way they’ll be able to bowl effective third and fourth spells, so that’s the standard we’re looking to set.”
Danyal Rasool is ESPNcricinfo’s Pakistan correspondent. @Danny61000
Source: ESPN Crickinfo