Karachi: Former Pakistan and batsman Inzamam ul Haq has lashed out at Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for replacing a Test match with two T20 Internationals during the forthcoming tour of the West Indies saying that Test cricket shouldn’t be sacrificed.
Keeping in mind this year’s T20 World Cup, PCB and Cricket West Indies (CWI) swapped a Test match with two additional T20 Internationals to be played in the Caribbean in July-August.
“I don’t mind if they want to play more T20s but Test cricket should not be sacrificed for this,” Inzamam said on his YouTube channel.
The month-long Pakistan tour from July 21 to August 24, will comprise five T20Is and two Tests. The T20Is will be played in Barbados and Guyana while Jamaica will be the venue for the two Tests.
Inzamam, who hit 8,830 in 120 Tests and 11,739 runs in 378 ODIs, said when Mohammed Amir decided to retire from Test cricket, he faced a lot of criticism for preferring T20s and league cricket over Test matches.
“The same happened with Wahab as well. But now the PCB is giving the same message by replacing Test matches with T20s. How can you stop players from quitting Test cricket, in future, if you are pursuing the same line of thought?,” the former Pakistan skipper asked.
He added that the International Cricket Council (ICC) and various cricket boards need to see it because eventually cricket players picking T20s over Tests will come back to hurt them.
“I request the ICC and other boards to see it because when the players will adopt the same approach, you will get hurt,” he added.
He said that Pakistan shouldn’t be too worried about lack of T20 matches ahead of World Cup.
“If you wanted more practice for the T20 World Cup, we should have asked them for T20s without reducing Test matches. If you ignore Test matches, it will hurt our cricket in the long run. Even if Pakistan didn’t get more T20 matches against West Indies, we still would have had enough practice with matches scheduled against England and New Zealand,” Inzamam stated.