Sri Lanka's world record holder spinner Muttiah Muralitharan said Pakistan was struggling at international level because of no cricket at their home grounds.
Pakistan has not hosted any international cricket at home since terrorists attacks on the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore in 2009 and are forced to play their home series on neutral venues of United Arab Emirates.
Muralitharan, who took a world record of 800 Tests and 534 one-day wickets, stated that the most obvious reason of Pakistani batsmen struggling was 'No cricket at home."
"I think they were struggling against Sri Lanka as well," said Muralitharan, who is in UAE with the Australian team as spin bowling consultant.
"Thing is that they have lots of young players who are not experienced much as before I think mainly because they are not playing in the home and they are developing lot of young cricketers and that is why I think they are struggling. So when it comes to this standard it takes some time to learn this standard. So that is why they are struggling."
Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Shaharyar Khan is on a tour of South Asian countries in his campaign to bring back international cricket gradually. He has been targeting Under-19 and "A' teams tours as the first step towards reviving international cricket in Pakistan.
Muralitharan said Pakistan lost the first one-day against Australia at Sharjah because the pitch took more turn in the second half.
"I have played lot of matches here and we know the wicket so much so we thought it is good to bat first and later on it might turn a little bit more. They have two spinners like Australians have two spinners as well . That apart 250 or 260 is a good total as wicket was slowing down and spinning a bit. Misbah dismissal is because the ball was turning and captain decided to put a leg slip and sometimes these things happen."
