After failing to win the first Test of two-match Test series against Australia at Dubai, Pakistan skipper Sarfraz Ahmed’s captaincy is under the scanner. However, he backs his decisions and the Pakistan leg-spinner Yasir Shah.

Putting the 462-run fourth innings target in front of Australia, Pakistan bowlers failed to take ten opponent wickets as Australia secured a magnificent draw after scoring 362/8 in 139.5 overs.

After the wicket-less (0/80) finish in Australia’s first innings, Pakistan senior leg-spinner Yasir Shah took four wickets (4/114) in the fourth innings of this Test match but he was far away from his familiar level.

Defending the 32-year-old leg-spinner, Sarfraz pointed out that Yasir returned to the Test cricket after almost one long year and they should give him a chance on that.

Sarfraz said, “Yasir Shah is playing Test cricket after a year. So, I think we should give some margin to him. This was his first match after a long time … Yes, he has practised and played domestic cricket. But, Test cricket is a different ball game altogether. We should give him a chance. He is our main bowler. This is a part of cricket. It was Yasir who got us back into the game after picking up three wickets. We should not write him off just yet. He has put up performances for Pakistan in the past.”

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While the experts feel that Sarfraz’s field changes didn’t work for Pakistan as it helped some Australian batsmen to come out from the pressure situations, his bowling changes decision were also not useful for his team.

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However, Sarfraz is satisfied with his bowling changes, while he feels that it became the wrong bowling changes due to only not getting wickets at the right times.

Sarfraz said, “Overall, I am satisfied with my bowling changes. Our bowling changes were correct. We utilised Hafeez to his full potential. After a change in his bowling action, he has lost some pace. We had actually brought him in the side primarily as an opening batsman and a fifth bowling option. We tried to bowl our main bowlers. These may come across as wrong bowling changes. Because, we couldn’t get wickets at the right instances.

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“We wanted our best bowler to bowl a longer spell. So, we opened the day with Wahab. We wanted to make the most of the reverse-swing. Batsmen can normally negate the ball going away from them. We wanted Wahab to reverse the ball back into the both left-handers at a daunting pace.”