Ian Chappell feels Australia should stop inviting Pakistan for Test series Down Under

Former Australian captain and a popular commentator Ian Chappell is of the view that Australia shouldn’t invite Pakistan cricket team for a tour Down Under unless and until they improve their game drastically and can give some sort of challenge to the home side it’s useless to invite them. The visitors were whitewashed 3-0 in the Test series and apart from the last innings of the Gabba Test, Pakistan failed to threaten the hosts.

Pakistan was outplayed in each and every department of the game disappointing a majority who had hoped to see to a keenly fought series after Pakistan’s impressive results in their adopted home UAE. Adding their 2-0 drubbing at the hands of New Zealand, the Misbah-ul-Haq led side has lost 5 Tests on a trot in the last 2 months, leading Chappell to question the perception of inviting a team which is a shadow of itself on abroad tours.

“Pakistan has now lost 12 Test matches on the trot in Australia, and somebody’s got to give them a kick up the bum. Cricket Australia have got to start saying ‘listen if things don’t improve we will stop with the invites’,” Chappell, who feels Pakistan’s poor fielding at the Melbourne Cricket Ground was a sign of things to come in the rest of the series was quoted as saying by the ESPN.

“You can’t continue to [play poor] cricket. You can’t bowl poorly, have conservative field placings and field sloppily and expect to play decent cricket in Australia,” he added. Chappell was very critical of Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq and said that the biggest reason behind Pakistan’s debacle was Misbah’s inability to inspire. “A lot of their struggles were because they had no leadership. There was no inspiration from Misbah, so things have got to change in Pakistan.”

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When asked to comment on Misbah’s future as a Pakistan captain, Chappell said if he would have been the selector then it would have been the end of the road for the 42-year veteran. “If I had anything to do with the selection then that will be it for Misbah as the captain, but in Pakistan, they do some very strange things, so I wouldn’t bet on it.”

He has warned the Aussies to not judge their performance on the base of what they did against Pakistan because a much sterner challenge awaits in the tour of India from February. “Australia have made some improvements, but whether their performances were flattered by the way Pakistan played…we will find that out in India as that will be the big test,” concluded Chappell.