Hasan Ali doesn’t particularly prioritize reaching the 150kph mark, and he asserts that none of his teammates share a specific focus on it either.
During a press conference after Day 1 of the Boxing Day Test against Australia in Melbourne, Hasan stated, “I don’t know whose pace has dropped as my focus has never been just on pace. I’ve never bowled at 150kph. I think it’s better to stick to the area around the top of off stump. I haven’t heard these rumours about pace dropping and we don’t care about them. Our focus is on the game & that’s where it should be.”
Recently, former World Cup winner with Pakistan, Waqar Younis, had expressed concerns about the current crop of Pakistan quicks. “Another thing that I’m worried about is that always when we come to Australia, one thing that excites is the fast bowling and this time around I’m not seeing that. I’m seeing medium pacers or slow medium pacers, allrounders, there’s no real pace. People used to come and watch Pakistan pace bowlers really running in hard and bowling 150 clicks. That’s what I’m not seeing there,” Waqar had remarked.
During their three-match Test series in Australia, Pakistan has been without the services of young pace sensation Naseem Shah as well as Haris Rauf. Despite these setbacks, after restricting Australia to 187/3 at Stumps on Tuesday, Hasan expressed optimism about Pakistan’s prospects in the ongoing game.
“It was a good day as a bowling unit. We were a bit unlucky, we haven’t got a lot of wickets but the best thing is we did not give them enough runs. I think we are a bit ahead of them. We’re looking forward to tomorrow. We’ll bowl them out to minimum runs,” Ali said.
Having chosen to bowl first after winning the toss, Pakistan secured breakthroughs via Hasan Ali, Salman Agha, and Aamer Jamal. The visitors successfully dismissed David Warner, Usman Khawaja, and Steve Smith. After going 1-0 down in the series following the Perth Test, the ongoing game represents the last opportunity for Pakistan to keep the fate of the series alive.
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