Stokes has ‘no complaints’ about engineered Test wickets

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP):

ENGLAND CAPTAIN Ben Stokes had no complaints about losing the Test series to Pakistan 2-1 on two engineered spin wickets.

“Absolutely not,” Stokes said after Pakistan thumped England by nine wickets inside three days of the third and final Test at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium to clinch its first series win at home since 2021.

“Playing in your home conditions, you want to give yourself the best chance of bringing yourselves into the game more. And that’s what Pakistan felt like,” he said. “They needed to do (that) to give themselves a chance to win, so absolutely no complaints whatsoever.”

Pakistan’s ploy of making dry spin wickets with the help of industrial-sized fans and outdoor heaters nullified England’s brilliant start to the series when it racked up 823-7 declared to win the first Test by an innings and 47 runs.

The selection committee recalled spinners Noman Ali and Sajid Khan after 10 months and the slow bowlers claimed 39 of the 40 wickets in the last two Tests.

“They use their home conditions in their favour,” Stokes said. “Pakistan just played better cricket for a longer period of time than what we did.”

Ali and Khan claimed all 20 wickets in the second Test on a recycled wicket before sharing 19 wickets in the final Test, which lasted for just seven sessions.

England couldn’t grab its opportunities in both Test matches. They dropped two crucial catches of Salman Ali Agha in the second Test and then in Rawalpindi allowed Pakistan to take a 77-run first innings lead after pushing them to 187-7.

The top-order batters also got strangled against Ali and Khan once Harry Brook made a triple hundred and Joe Root scored a career-best 262 in the first Test. Ollie Pope, who led in the first Test with Stokes still nursing his hamstring injury, finished the series at a disappointing total of only 55 runs in six innings.

Stokes scored 1, 37, 12 and 3 on his return in the last two Test matches and his below-par series was summed up when he got out lbw in an awful manner while trying to leave Ali’s arm ball yesterday.

“We obviously underperformed because we’ve lost the last two games,” Stokes said. “We got our own challenges and we weren’t able to stand up to those challenges for long enough to get the result that we wanted.

“We did it for a very small amount of times throughout the last two games,” he added. “But when you don’t do it for long periods, you’re more than likely going to end up on the wrong side of results, which has definitely happened in these two games.”