MATCH STORY
Follow UsWhen Abdullah Shafique started his Test career back in 2021 away from home, in Bangladesh, he managed to score consecutive fifties on debut in Chattogram. Those twin fifties would mark the start of a special few months for Shafique, who would go on to become the joint-third fastest Pakistani to 1000 Test runs.
Two and a half years down the line, Shafique is playing against the same opponents, but life couldn't be more different for the right-hander, who is unable to even get a start, let alone score fifties. Compared to his first two scores of 73 and 52, his last two scores against Bangladesh read 0 and 2.
However, it is not only in this series that Shafique has struggled to score runs over the last year and a half. In fact, since January 2023, the 24-year-old has only two fifty-plus scores in 14 innings.
Slump in form
Shafique, who still has more than a healthy Test average of 42.78, is someone rated highly in Pakistan. With scores of 136 and 96 against Australia, 160 against Sri Lanka and 114 on a slow track against England, the Sialkot-born looked like a natural in the red-ball format in his initial days.
However, that 114 in Rawalpindi was his last innings of mastery before and after the double century in Colombo against the Lankans. Since then, it has been difficult for the opener to maintain his reputation as a great batter in Tests.
Since 2023, Shafique has been one of the worst openers in Test cricket. Among openers who have played 12+ innings during this period, only three others average lower than Shafique's 28.29.
And over 50% of the 396 runs he scored during this period came in a single knock against Sri Lanka. Outside that knock, the right-hander has averaged 15.00 in the last 18 months.
He has eight single-digit scores, which is the third-most among all openers. The 24-year-old has registered five single digit scores in his last six Test innings alone, with his scores during this period reading 4, 0, 0, 2, 37, 0.
Struggling with foot movement and shot selection
Early days, but the last 18 months have given the impression that teams have found a way to bowl to Shafique.
Post the England series in 2022, the 24-year-old has been dismissed by pacers nine times. Today, he was cleaned up by Taskin Ahmed in the first over of the match. It was a classic out-of-form batter dismissal. Five balls went away from him and then the one that came back in cleaned him up.
In the first Test, too, he was caught in the slip off the bowling of another right-arm pacer, Hasan Mahmud. But this series is not the only one where he's struggled against pace in general.
In the series against Australia in January this year, Shafique was tormented by pacers, Mitchell Starc in general. He got out to the left-arm pacer twice in the third Test at Sydney, for a pair. Prior to that, he was out to Starc once each in both Perth and Melbourne. Overall against pace in that series, Shafique averaged just 15.8, scoring 79 runs off 198 balls while getting dismissed five times.
The right-hander, of late, has struggled immeasurably against anything from pacers on the corridor of uncertainty, regardless of whether the balls leave him or comes back into him.
In this series, while pacers have got him twice, he's also been dismissed by the left-arm spin of Shakib Al Hasan. But that dismissal was not because of his technique, but rather a rash shot played at a time when it was not needed.
The two occasions in Australia when he was not dismissed by Starc, the right-hander got out after getting set to shots that could have been avoided. Thus technique aside, Shafique's shot selection has also let him down big time during this tumultuous period.
With a run machine in Muhammad Hurraira waiting in the wings, and with Saim Ayub racking up the fifties, Shafique could very well find himself out of the side if he does not score heavily in the second innings.
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