Coming to the support of the under-fire national cricket team and its captain Inzamam-ul Haq, Pakistan Cricket Board chief Shaharyar Khan blamed participation in "a lot of one-dayers" for the side's huge loss in the first Test against Australia.
Defending the captain and the high-profile coach Bob Woolmer, Shaharyar said the loss in the Perth Test was "not worse" than the defeat against India in the Rawalpindi Test.
Giving the reasons for the team's huge 491-run loss in the Test match last week, he said "it could not sustain the pressure, captain's back pain played negative impact on other players' mind and the team is not used to playing Test matches after being involved in lots of ODIs."
"Inzamam came to bat despite the bad back. Had he not come to bat, the morale of the rest of the teams would have been at the lowest ebb," he said.
The PCB would consider a proposal to give Inzamam breaks to keep him fit, he was quoted as saying in the media in Islamabad on Friday.
The Board chief also praised the national coach saying "under Woolmer's coaching Pakistan had defeated India four times and came close to beating Australia twice in one-dayers."
Shaharyar also said that the removal of Woolmer's predecessor Javed Miandad had nothing to do with Pakistan's Test as well as one-day series loss to India.
"Yes I did issue a strongly-worded statement soon after the Pakistan team lost to India but there were other reasons for Miandad's ouster," Khan said without elaborating what led PCB to remove Miandad from the post.
