LAHORE: Former Test cricketer and chief selector Mohammad Ilyas has said Pakistan need an attacking left-handed middle-order batsman to bounce back in the ODI series against England.

Talking to media here on Monday, Ilyas said the team should also learn to play modern day cricket instead of using the old tactics of 90s.

Pakistan have so far lost the first two matches of the ODI series against England.

Ilyas said modern cricket requires from a team to put up a target of 300 plus runs on the board for the rivals but Pakistan team was not matching that standard.

“To earn a big total, Pakistan team should not play many dot balls and its batsmen should try to maintain the run-rate of 7 and 8 during power-play,” he said.

He added that England had offered Pakistan batting tracks in the ODI series where 300 plus total was getable but poor show by Pakistan batsmen let everyone down.

He said to keep the run-rate up the batsmen should rotate the strike and instead of trying to hit sixes, they should prefer to hit boundaries and try to take three, two and single runs.

He said that in the middle-order an attacking player was the need of time, who attacked the bowlers but not in style of a big hitter.

Ilyas said the English team was not formidable, both in batting and bowling departments, and Pakistan needed only spirit to beat them.

About Mohammad Hafeez’s injury problem, Ilyas said no one could declare a player fit unless the player himself declares himself fit.

Ilyas slammed captain Azhar Ali’s performance and said the opener was a good Test batsman but by including him in ODIs his Test performance would suffer.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2016