Pak vs Ban
\nRawalpinidi
\nPersistent rain and wet outfield forced the first day\u2019s play of the second Test match between Pakistan and Bangladesh to be called off at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Friday.
\nEarlier, heavy rains in the morning marred the game\u2019s first day, leading to a delay in the toss.
\nBoth teams were still in their hotel after the rain stopped for a short duration, with the Met Office forecasting intermittent monsoon rain.
\nSince morning, sporadic showers have been lashing the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
\nThough the pitch was covered but most of the stadium got marshy because of the downpour. Now the match will begin tomorrow morning, given that the dry field is available.
\nIt is a bad omen for a Pakistan team desperate to square the two-match series after Bangladesh won the first Test, also in Rawalpindi, on Sunday.
\nBangladesh\u2019s 10-wicket victory was their first in 14 Tests against Pakistan.
\nAfter upsetting a normally formidable home team, Bangladesh are hoping to secure a first Test-series victory over Pakistan.
\nPakistan have left out pace spearhead Shaheen Shah Afridi from their 12-member squad, allowing him time to spend with his newly born son.
\nStar pacer Afridi struggled to find his rhythm through much of the innings, with Pakistan\u2019s head coach Jason Gillespie saying he will be rested to allow him to spend time with his new-born son and family.
\n\u201cObviously Shaheen will miss out on this game. We had a good conversation with him and he fully understands and appreciates the thinking behind it. We are just looking at what our best combination is for this game,\u201d Gillespie said.
\nThe hosts have been struggling through a lean spell of late, bowing out early in this year\u2019s T20 World Cup. Their last Test series was a whitewash in a three-match tour to Australia.
\nPakistan squad:
\nShan Masood (captain), Saud Shakeel (vice captain), Mohammad Rizwan (wicket keeper), Abrar Ahmed, Mohammad Ali, Salman Ali Agha, Saim Ayub, Babar Azam, Mir Hamza, Abdullah Shafique, Naseem Shah, Khurram Shehzad
\nPakistan played four fast bowlers in the series opener \u2014 Shaheen, Khurram Shahzad, Mohammad Ali and Naseem Shah \u2014 as Masood opted to go with a pace attack, but things went awry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pak vs Ban Rawalpinidi Persistent rain and wet outfield forced the first day\u2019s play of the second Test match between Pakistan and Bangladesh to be called off at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Friday. Earlier, heavy rains in the morning marred the game\u2019s first day, leading to a delay in the toss. Both teams were …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":69633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69636,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69620\/revisions\/69636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}