We had a clear plan of what pitches to prepare - Azhar Mahmood

With how the first Test between Pakistan and England played out with runs being scored at a rapid rate across the three innings played, it will be interesting to see how the same track plays out when the two teams meet at the same venue in Multan. Even more so after the plethora of changes that the hosts have made to their structure as compared to how they were lined up for the first game.

Assistant coach of Pakistan, Azhar Mahmood, opened up on the pitches that they had originally planned to utilize for their series against Bangladesh and England, respectively. He also noted that how things ultimately played out weren't how the team and the management were expecting them to go down at the end.  

"We had a clear plan of what pitches to prepare for Bangladesh, and what to prepare vs England. Our approach was pace wickets against Bangladesh and spin pitches against England. Our instruction to the curator for the first Test was that the ball should spin after the second day. But the pitch didn't take a turn until even the fifth day. Hopefully, the ball will begin to take a turn on the ninth day. You have to take 20 wickets. We thought about how we were going to take those. We thought that if we use that pitch, the thinking was how do we take 20 wickets against England and we thought spin was the way to do it," stated Mahmood, as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

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The former Pakistan all-rounder also observed that the best way to go forward was to prepare pitches on which many of the players coming into the squad were already acclimatized. 

"The players who are coming in are experienced. They are all experienced and have been playing first-class cricket for a while. The best option is to play players at home on pitches they are used to, so I don't think there will be that much pressure on that," mentioned Mahmood.

We knew we'd have to rest Shaheen and other important players: Mahmood

After backing ace batter Babar Azam despite him getting dropped, he provided a valid justification as to why Babar and the rest of the players were dropped from the squad for the Tests in Multan and Rawalpindi. 

"Babar is our No. 1 player in terms if technique and ability. Pakistan has so much cricket coming that the selection committee decided to give Babar a rest, because Pakistan have to go to Australia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. We need to take advantage of our conditions. We announced the team for one-Test match because we knew we would have changes. After this, we're flying to Australia to play white-ball cricket. We knew we'd have to rest Shaheen and other important players because we have non-stop cricket for the next six months," added Mahmood.

Also Read: PCB defends call to drop Babar Azam, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah from second, third Tests vs England

Pakistan indeed have a frantic itinerary in store after the completion of the series against England. They make their way to Australia and Zimbabwe to play a white-ball series consisting of three T20Is and as many ODIs, respectively, before making their way to South Africa for an all-format series.