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Quetta Gladiators' one-run loss to Peshawar Zalmi in the first eliminator of the Pakistan Super League hasn't gone down too well with their head coach Moin Khan who lamented the absence of their top overseas stars. Needing 25 off the last over, Anwar Ali kept them in the hunt and brought the equation down to three off the final delivery. However, they were able to manage just one and crashed out of the tournament.
Gladiators were without Shane Watson and Kevin Pietersen for the clash who refused to travel to Pakistan for the final leg of the tournament. While Watson propped them up with his batting and ended the highest run-getter for then with 319 runs from ten games, Pietersen didn't quite set the stage on fire and scored 155 runs at 19.57.
Moin felt that players refusing to travel to Pakistan shouldn't be allowed in the league as it sends out a wrong message. "We, in the coming season, should only pick players who have the consent to visit Pakistan," he said on Tuesday (March 20). "We do not need to push for individuality as our league has now become a bigger brand and now we need to go on and think about the teams. So going into the future, we don't need to get these players who don't want to come to Pakistan. In fact, this is hurting Pakistan as it is sending a negative signal and affects our country's image as well.
"Their refusal on visiting Pakistan sends a false impression that we are an unsafe country, but I am pretty sure we are a safe country and they should come here and play. I personally feel we eventually shouldn't be dependent on these players. If somebody respects Pakistan and the image of the country, he should come and play this league."
With Watson and Pietersen not there, Gladiators decided to field Mahmudullah and Thisara Perera who joined the squad after the Twenty20 International tri-series in Sri Lanka. The decision to open with Tom Kohler-Cadmore with Watson being unavailable also didn't work as he was able to manage just 5. Things, however, could have been significantly different had Gladiators not lost their final league clash to Islamabad United.
Had Sarfraz Ahmed and Co. won that clash they would have been guaranteed a top two finish and would have also sealed a place in the Qualifier. However, the six-wicket loss meant they finished fourth and had to play the Eliminator.
Moin conceded players not getting enough rest ahead of the all-important hurt their chances significantly. "[I am] feeling hurt as a head coach," he revealed. "It was a good match in terms of entertainment but we made mistakes and a few unnecessary shots were played. But overall your combination is broken...it happens because Shane Watson didn't come despite committing and about KP we always knew he wouldn't be coming to Pakistan. So the problem is very obvious and otherwise we are not really choking because we were without our right combination and our strength was broken so we were nowhere.
"Even today, our one overseas player - Thisara Perera - he joined us at a time when we were making our way to the ground and he landed in Lahore after three connections from Colombo to Dubai to Karachi to Lahore. Tom [Kohler-Cadmore] and Mahmudullah landed earlier this morning. No matter how big a player you are, your body needs rest. We had discussed in our team meeting that we don't need to depend on our overseas players, and have to show our commitment and take responsibility as a team. Winning and losing is a part of the game but I am happy that we still managed to stretch the game in the end and we had a close finish."
(CRICBUZZ)
