Not an ideal year for Pakistan in red ball cricket as the green caps finished on the seventh spot in ICC Tests rankings, released on the last day of the year [2018].
Pakistan have 2,579 points in their account playing overall eight Test matches in 2018 out of which they won four, lost three and one was held draw.
In ICC’s One Day rankings, Pakistan are promoted one spot up from sixth to the fifth position with 4,370 points. Meanwhile, they are dominating in the T20 format finishing on the top of the ICC’s year-ender T20 rankings.
Legspinner Yasir Shah and right-handed batsman Babar Azam marked individual world records in 2018. Yasir became the fastest bowler to take 200 Test wickets while Babar broke the record of fastest batsman to complete 1,000 runs in T20 cricket.
Fakhar, with a powerful inning of 210 runs against Zimbabwe, became the first Pakistani batsman to enter the ODI 200 club.
Skipper Sarfraz Ahmed is satisfied with his team’s performance in the shorter format and stressed upon the need to work hard in Test cricket.
He, in a video message, said that they were quite impressive in T20Is finishing the year at the top position and also improved their ODI rankings.
“I think we are doing fine in T20Is and ODIs but there is need to improve in Test cricket,” he said.
Sarfraz said that this was their first year in Test cricket without the experienced duo of Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan and they learnt quite a bit in their absence.
“Their presence was precious for us but we will try to gain the rhythm in Test cricket as soon as possible,” said Sarfraz who believes that the team have a better blend of experienced and young players.
On the other hand, the team’s head coach Mickey Arthur thinks that they could have achieved better results in 2018.
“I think our overall performance this year was good but we could have achieved better results than this,” said Arthur.
Arthur mentioned The Lord’s Test victory over England, a 1-0 series win over Australia and world record 17-T20Is winning streak as special feats.
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