Former captain, Ramiz Raja, has claimed that PCB should not have conductedPakistan’s training sessions at Queenstown because it lacks proper trainingfacilities. Ramiz believes that this is the reason behind Babar Azam’sinjury.——————————

Ramiz said that although Queenstown is one of the most beautiful cricketgrounds in the world, it lacks the basic facilities to conduct trainingsessions for international teams. He said that the ground is not suitablefor cricket as it does not host many international matches.

“Obviously, this is why practice facilities would not have been up to therequired standards, which would have probably led to uneven bounce, andcould have resulted in Babar Azam fracturing his thumb as well,” Ramiz said.

Babar Azam suffered a fracture in his right thumb in a practice session inQueenstown on Sunday morning and has been advised by the doctors to takerest for at least 12 to 14 days, which puts his place in the first Testunder doubt as well.——————————

Ramiz added that the players spent a lot of time in quarantine which wouldhave led them to be a bit lethargic. It would have slowed down theirreflexes. Even a player of Babar’s caliber may find it difficult to middlethe ball straight away after such a lengthy lay-off.

He advised PCB to take all of these things into account when planning for atour of such magnitude.