Over the last few days, they have done away with their philosophy, dropped their best players, and found a short-term, unsustainable way to get ahead
Danyal Rasool16-Oct-2024In the heady days of early 2021, Pakistan had a strut in their step. Test cricket had returned to Pakistan. Shaheen Shah Afridi was hitting his stride, and a young Naseem Shah had taken Test cricket by storm. Even Hasan Ali, derailed for years with form and fitness concerns, had marked his Test return by finishing as the top wicket-taker in a hard-fought home series against South Africa. A series which – on two cracking surfaces in Karachi and Rawalpindi – Pakistan had won 2-0.But that strut also betrayed an air of moral superiority. Pakistan, it was felt, were now different to the rest of South Asia, a land where the ball seamed and swung, where fast bowlers took nine of the 10 wickets in the fourth innings on the fifth day. Their Asian neighbours may have produced dustbowls, turning tracks, and quick-finishing Test matches, but was that really fun? Veteran spinner Yasir Shah – perhaps Pakistan’s most important player during the second half of their UAE exile – was gently making way to these young quicks, with Azhar Ali speaking of his “changing role” in the team. He would never play another home Test match.In the years since, Pakistan have not won another home Test match. The reputation for spicy wickets Pakistan had attempted to cultivate lies in tatters. Afridi’s pace has dropped to a level that no longer places him among the elite in Test cricket, while the workload on Naseem’s fragile young body has seen him pick up injuries and require extended periods of rest.Related
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It all culminated in an embarrassing innings defeat last week, sending Pakistan down the desperate path they now trod in Multan. The pace bowlers had had a good run, so much so they played four of them three Tests ago against Bangladesh. In all three Tests, they looked as likely to take 20 wickets as to sprout wings and fly. So what was that other thing South Asian sides did against non-Asian opposition?Who knew? Pakistan had made no plans for this. Until the weekend, there was a wicket two strips across being prepared for this Test. Akin to a student realising they’d prepped for the wrong exam all term, Pakistan spent the weekend ripping up their notes and glancing sneakily across to their neighbours. They recycled the same surface, dropped (sorry, rested) their seamers, lined up with three specialist spinners to go with the three-part-time spinners already in their XI. They even won the toss, batted first, and posted a decent first-innings score.But, as an American political argument almost goes: spinning tracks don’t take wickets, good spinners take wickets. And all the evidence suggested Pakistan did not rate these three spinners especially highly. Zahid Mahmood and Noman Ali had been released from the squad for the first Test; Sajid Khan never a part of it. They were all so unlikely to feature this series none of them had played a first-class match since January. When Bangladesh A played a pair of warm-ups against their Pakistani counterparts, Sajid, Nauman and Zahid played no part.What followed was about as predictable as it gets. Spinners need rhythm, or their lines and lengths waver. England are adept at putting rubbish deliveries away. Pakistan’s trio were bowling plenty of those, partly because they were rusty, and partly, as their records suggest, they’re not quite world-class. England didn’t need a second invitation putting them away.
“I’m always the first one to be kicked out. From domestic and club cricket to international cricket, if anyone was going to be left out, it would be me. So I have learned to fight for my place all the time.”Sajid Khan
Ben Duckett alone had the opportunity to sweep 29 times through his innings, a combination of Sajid and Nauman pitching it up and bowling a shade too quick. Pakistan were finding out may be able to replicate a template post-haste, but cricketers cannot be conjured out of thin air. Their dearth of spin-bowling quality in the country was on full display for the best part of the final two sessions. Duckett had swept – quite literally – his way to three figures, and with an hour to play, England had raced to 211 for two. With the shadows lengthening and the floodlights flickering on, the door looked to be closing on Pakistan and the spinners on their last chance saloon.It’s a feeling Sajid doesn’t like, but one he’s experienced a lot. “I’m always the first one to be kicked out,” he said after the game. “From domestic and club cricket to international cricket, if anyone was going to be left out, it would be me. So I have learned to fight for my place all the time.”In that last hour, Sajid put all his experience of keeping that closing door ajar to good use. A miscued smear from Joe Root gave him a wicket slightly against the run of play, but Sajid has sensed the pitch was beginning to come to life; he just needed to be smart about how to use it.”There’s a patch slightly wider outside the off stump that was producing turn, and at a particular pace. We were bowling a little too quickly, but if you slow it down to 67, 68 kph, that’s when you got purchase. If you bowl at particular spots at 90+ you’ll only get the odd break. But there’s nothing in it for the spinner if you’re bowling within the stumps. If you bowl wider outside the stumps, and slow, that’s where the cracks are, and that’s what we seek to exploit.”It is surprising insight to give out midway through a Test, but out there, England seemed to be none the wiser. Tossing it up and landing it into the rough, he took the sweep out of Duckett’s arsenal. The cover drive he attempted to play wasn’t nearly as assured, and Agha Salman at first slip was poised.It was Harry Brook’s dismissal, though, that is likelier to be a harbinger for both sides’ batters. Sajid merely followed his new-found plan, landing it around sixth stump. Brook was slow to close the gap between bat and pad as he stepped back, perhaps understandably believing he had time to readjust for spin. The rocking back of his middle stump suggested otherwise.Noman, too, capitalised on Pakistan’s new-found momentum to find Ben Stokes’ inside edge to short leg, and to send his side in at stumps on the ascendancy. The concept of overnight advantage carries psychological heft in cricket; stumps an hour earlier would have seen the day end with England utterly dominant.The purists might wonder if this style of cricket is genuinely Pakistani. But over the last few days, they have done away with their philosophy, dropped their best players, cobbled together a bowling attack from change they found down the back of the sofa, and found a short-term, unsustainable way to manufacture a position of advantage. What could be more authentically Pakistani than that?