Playing on Foreign Pitches, A Blessing in Disguise?

[Dr Khan]

Unfortunately due to the security situation in Pakistan, all of our cricket is now being played away from home. Subcontinental teams are normally thought to be Lions at home and chicken abroad (India is the prime example). The questions that I have, are

1)Will this experience of playing in foreign conditions (more bowler friendly) have any impact on our players, especially the young batsmen as they wont be scoring as many runs in a season as they normally would?

2)How do you see the long term impact of this on quality of our cricket? More pacers than spinners? better batsmen? Will our youngster learn to adopt to conditions quicker than they normally would?

What do you guys think?

[Down2Earth]

it's definitely a blessing in disguise, i remember miandad wanted green wickets for the players to practice on but inti wanted flat decks for some reason.
the greener the wickets, the better our batsmen will develop.

[FastBowler]

it's definitely a blessing in disguise, i remember miandad wanted green wickets for the players to practice on but inti wanted flat decks for some reason.
the greener the wickets, the better our batsmen will develop.

Inti's stupid. :inti

[Dr Khan]

it's definitely a blessing in disguise, i remember miandad wanted green wickets for the players to practice on but inti wanted flat decks for some reason.
the greener the wickets, the better our batsmen will develop.

I agree but will it have an impact on our bowling too. We have always heavily relied on reverse swing and genuine pace. Does this mean that now we will produce more medium pacers and seamers than genuine quickies?

[insaaniyat]

it's definitely a blessing in disguise, i remember miandad wanted green wickets for the players to practice on but inti wanted flat decks for some reason.
the greener the wickets, the better our batsmen will develop.
Agreed

[Awesome_Username]

1) Thats a good point. A new guy coming through will probably struggle in his first few innings abroad and get dropped, and since there seem to be a couple of spots available, we might see a lot of shuffling going around. But on the flip side, if some guy does manage to do well, then he is likely to be of genuine quality i.e. a poor batsman wont be able to make use of the flat decks to paper over the cracks and cement his spot.

2) I don't think Pakistan's exclusion will last for that long to have any major long term impacts. And even if it was to extend for a while, it is unlikely to affect the domestic structure i.e. pitches etc. So again, not much gonna happen in the long term.

[hassan.raza]

yes it will be blessing in disguise for our younger players .......... who will get used to these pitches ................... and it will be good for our cricket

[taqi]

we'll be playing most of the times in UAE this Eng summer is once in a while so dont think so there will be anything like that :(

[Opener]

I think it will only be relevant if we develop green tops in Pakistan. It would be wonderful experience for the youngsters but if they don't get to hone their techniques and practice on such pitches playing against Australia, South Africa, England on seaming or pacy wickets may turn out to be a nightmare.

I agree with Taqi that most of the home matches will be in UAE.

Also in recent times Pakistan's weakest point has been their self belief. It could go really bad this English summer or the boys in green could dig deep and defy all their critics. Inshallah it will be the latter.

[Down2Earth]

I agree but will it have an impact on our bowling too. We have always heavily relied on reverse swing and genuine pace. Does this mean that now we will produce more medium pacers and seamers than genuine quickies?
Tbh I don't really think it'll affect the bowling too much as that was down to Imran, wasim, Waqar, Shoaib etc. just look at india, they've got flatter wickets than us and probably the least talented bowlers of the top 7 teams.

[akamaka]

I agree but will it have an impact on our bowling too. We have always heavily relied on reverse swing and genuine pace. Does this mean that now we will produce more medium pacers and seamers than genuine quickies?

No, since the young quickies as they come through the domestic competition will learn to bowl reverse swing on on our flat pitches, and when they go overseas they will bowl on green tops. Making them even more
adaptable. ;-)

[Pakprideuk]

It will only affect players who are on the international circuit, and having mostly flat pitches is kind of good for our youngsters, you work harder, reverse and put effort in and if you put the same amount of effort abroad, you'll be very successful due to the green, swinging pitches!

[Sledger]

Most of the wickets Pakistan have played on away from home have been pretty flat anyway, the NZ wickets had some swing but that's about it - their batting is inept on most surfaces these days. It would be a blessing if you'd add youngsters but the board and, surprisingly, a lot of people on here don't want to throw the likes of Amin, Yasin and co in tough conditions like England. It would also be beneficial if they dumped out players who've not advanced their technique to adapt to the wicket a la Farhat, Iqbal, Misbah.