Pakistan were not all out in their first innings, with Shan Masood declaring the innings at 448 for 6. It was understood that Pakistan thought four and a half hundred runs was enough. But at the end of the fourth day, Pakistan trailed in the match. Bangladesh scored 565 runs in the first innings and took a lead of 117 runs. In Rawalpindi, the hosts now have to fight to save the match. Behind such a situation, the Pakistan team is seeing the responsibility of the wicket rather than the achievements of the Bangladeshi batsmen. At the end of the third day, assistant coach Azhar Mehmood had ‘permitted’ to change the behavior of the pitch, today after the fourth day’s play, pacer Naseem Shah also spoke in the same tone. According to the pacer, who took 3 wickets in the first innings against Bangladesh, the Pakistan team could not take advantage of the home field. He commented that either grass wickets or spin-friendly wickets were needed for the pacers.

Bangladesh team went into bat on the fourth day with 316 runs for 5 wickets. Mushfiqur Rahim started the day’s play with 55 and Liton Das with 52 runs. Naseem picked up Liton (56) at the start of the day, but Mehdi Hasan Miraj came in and formed a tall partnership with Mushfiqur. Bangladesh scored 196 runs in the duo’s partnership, which is the highest in a seventh-wicket partnership against Pakistan. It was Mushfiq-Miraj who took Bangladesh over five hundred runs.

Nasim said that the pacers did not get any benefit from the wicket. Pakistan team has not kept any spinner in the XI as the wicket will be pace friendly. Still, Nasim commented that the management needs to think carefully about the fact that the pacers are struggling to take wickets, “We don’t make the pitch.” I think if we can’t build (grass) green wickets, it’s better to build spin-friendly wickets. We have to take home advantage at all costs. We need to think about this.’Naseem, however, is not willing to blame the management for not getting good wickets, ‘Our management has tried their best to make good wickets. Now we need to think how to take advantage of the home field. In the first innings of Bangladesh, Pakistan’s four pacers took 9 wickets. Naseem three and Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Ali and Khurram Shehzad two each. Naseem, playing the 19th match of his Test career, also accepted his failure as a bowling department, ‘As bowlers, we have to be focused and disciplined. We could have done better as a bowling department as well.

Former Pakistani pacer Tanveer Ahmed, however, highlighted the failure of Naseems in a sarcastic language. The pacer, who played 5 Tests for Pakistan between 2010 and 2013, posted several posts expressing his disappointment at X. In one he wrote, ‘Naseem is 21 years old, Afridi is 24, Shehzad is also 24. But their bowling looks like they are 35 years old.