Yasir Shah rues missing Abu Dhabi Test against England, eyes Dubai

Yasir Shah’s absence was badly felt by Pakistan, who were forced to go into the match with just one specialist spinner Zulfiqar Babar and all-rounder Shoaib Malik

Pakistan’s young leg-spinner Yasir Shah has set his sights on playing the remaining two Tests against England after his team escaped defeat in the first match in Abu Dhabi.

Yasir missed the first Test after suffering from a back spasm during practice a day before the match.

His absence was badly felt by Pakistan, who were forced to go into the match with just one specialist spinner Zulfiqar Babar and all-rounder Shoaib Malik, who had to get in quit a few overs of his off-spin.

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“I had worked very hard for the first Test after seeing the pitch in Abu Dhabi it was disappointing to miss out,” Yasir said on a television channel.

“It was a slow track but it had something for the leg-spinners. I was prepared to push the ball through and focus on line and length for long spells in the test,” Yasir said.

The leg-spinner from Swabi in the Khyber Pakhtunkhawa province has already picked up 61 wickets in 10 Tests since his debut last September against Australia.

Yasir, 29, who is inspired by Australian great Shane Warne said he had been working on his bowling action a lot to master the art of bowling a well disguised googly and changing his pace to deceive the batsmen.

“The googly is one delivery on which I have yet to get full mastery and I am working hard on it since it is a wicket taking delivery on such slow pitches,” he said.

Former leg-spinner Abdul Qadir told PTI that Yasir had shown tremendous potential but had to work on his googly.

“He bowls the flipper well but he needs to also gain control over the googly which is a must for all great leg-spin bowlers,” Qadir, one of the greats of the game, said.

He said that Adil Rashid’s five wickets in the second innings of the first Test had shown how much difference Yasir would have made in Abu Dhabi.

“He is a very confident bowler that is his strength and he is not afraid of getting hit. That is the hallmark of a good leg-spinner,” Qadir said.

He said if Pakistan had Yasir back for the second game, England batsmen would face problems against him as he was good at pushing the ball through and deceiving the batsmen.

Historically the sub-continent has always produced great leg-spinners like Subhash Gupte, Chandrashekar, Qadir, Danish Kaneria and Anil Kumble to name a few.