Azhar Ali blames day-night Test for Adelaide defeat

Pakistan Test captain Azhar Ali has blamed the conditions in the day-night Test in Adelaide behind the Men in Green’s embarrassing loss against Australia by an innings and 48 runs.

While speaking at the post-match press conference in Adelaide, Azhar claimed that batting under lights had a major influence on the result.

“When you are batting in the evening under lights, even your slight mistakes costs you heavily since the ball has more zip and its seams and swings more. We lost six wickets in the final session on day two which was too many,” said Azhar. “Even yesterday we got to bat for a while under lights and lost three crucial wickets. Compared to night, batting in the day time is relatively easy.”

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Azhar lamented the fact that Pakistan batsmen were unable to play long innings and build partnerships in the middle.

“Shan Masood and Asad Shafiq had a good partnership in the morning and we expected them to score big,” he said. “It was unfortunate that they were not able to convert their start into something substantial and put us into a good position.”

Despite the two-nil clean sweep, Azhar maintained that the visitors can take some positives from the Test series.

"We lacked in all three departments in both Tests but we take some positives and learnings,” he said. “Yasir put up a lot of fight. Babar has been exceptional in this series, that's a great positive.”

"It's very hard here with a young bowling attack but they showed promise and need to be persisted with in future,” he added.