SERIES PREVIEW
Follow UsIt was the month of March and the year 2022. Australia had become the second team after South Africa from SENA countries (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia) to tour Pakistan after 2005-06. There was a lot of buzz about Test cricket being back in the land of reverse swings and Doosras after a gap of nearly 15 years.
However, the euphoria was short-lived as the pitch curators in Rawalpindi and Karachi, where the first two Tests were played, built pure roads, and batters went on a rampage in boring Tests.
The third one at Lahore was also heading for a draw before an inspired performance by Pat Cummins led to an Australian win. That series started what has so far continued: a winless run at home for the Pakistan team.
Since March 2022, the Men in Green have played 10 Tests at home, losing six and drawing four. It is their longest winless stretch at home, and they would want nothing more than a win to start the three-match series against England, which begins on October 7 (Monday) in Multan.
The last time England toured Pakistan was in 2022, it marked the start of the Bazball era overseas. Bazball has now travelled a lot and is back where it started.
In 2022, Pakistan were taken by surprise as England managed to force a win even on the road-like pitch of Rawalpindi. This time around, they have different challenges to tackle other than the speed at which Bazball plays the game.
However, England, who lost the last Test of the three-match series against Sri Lank at home to blow away any remaining possible (realistically and not mathematically) hopes of making it to the final of the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25, would be looking to finish the cycle with a flourish. They would want series wins in Pakistan and New Zealand if not clean sweeps on both tours.
Though they might have confidence to back them after their last tour of Pakistan, England too have their hands full when it comes to the challenges of playing in these parts of the world, especially after several changes that their red-ball unit has gone through in the last two years.
England’s inexperienced bowling attack
The last time the English were in Pakistan for a Test series, they had Mark Wood, James Anderson and Ollie Robinson in their side as fast bowling options. Among themselves, the trio had taken 25 wickets in the series. This time around, the English bowling attack features Olly Stone, Matthew Potts, Gus Atkinson, Brydon Carse and Chris Woakes.
None have played in Pakistan, and only Woakes has played Tests in Asia (three in India and two in Bangladesh), taking six wickets in five matches at an average of over 62.
When it comes to experience overall in Test cricket, only Woakes has more than 10 Tests under his belt among all the pacers (not counting Ben Stokes as him bowling is nearly impossible with injury). Since Woakes’ numbers in Asia are so bad, this English attack is virtually a pack of fresh graduates trying to find their way in a job market they don’t have any prior experience of.
Babar Azam’s form: Will the weight off his shoulders help?
Babar Azam, much like Pakistan, has been out of form. But his numbers tell an altogether different story. In 10 Tests that Pakistan have been winless at home, he averages 54.11 with three centuries and five fifties to his name. He is the highest run scorer among all batters in Pakistan since 2022.
Not only that, if we look at all the batters in Tests between March 1, 2022, to October 5, 2024, Babar ranks 15th among players with the most runs at an average of 46.91, again not something one could criticise a lot. He is the best Pakistani batter in that period.
Then what’s the problem, one would ask? His inability to win crucial phases in Tests. Babar has just one fifty in the third innings and one hundred in the fourth since March 2022. These are the passages of play which matter the most, especially in Pakistan, where wickets are usually easy to bat on in the first two innings, more so since they have started to make dry and non-bowler-friendly pitches.
If Pakistan are to make anything out of this series, Babar would have to take his game one notch above, now that his shoulders are lighter with the weight of captaincy in white-ball cricket reduced.
Harry Brook: Will he cash in on the ‘homecoming’
Harry Brook, who now has experience of 18 Tests behind his back, was only one match old when he first set foot in Pakistan. He was considered to be in danger, having no prior experience of playing in Asian conditions.
But in pure Breaking Bad style, he announced himself on the world stage saying, ‘I am not in danger, I am the danger’, smashing three centuries in three Tests and scoring a total of 468 runs in six innings.
He is back in the same country, and he now has 1,078 more runs in 23 more innings. The 25-year-old would surely be tempted to consider it a homecoming and smash his way to more centuries since he has added only two to the three he had accumulated on Pakistani soil.
Pitches in Pakistan: Will they stop being a road?
The biggest concern for the Pakistani team since 2022 has been the pitches at which they are playing. Time and again, players have raised their voices against pitches that don’t help the fast bowlers, Pakistan’s main strength. The pitches, however, do a lot on the last day and a half. It becomes difficult for Pakistan to win games since they do not possess quality spin attacks.
Though they have now added Noman Ali in the attack as an extra spinner (left-arm orthodox) apart from regular leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed and part-time off-spinner Salman Agha, Multan has generally favoured pacers.
In six Tests here, Pakistan have won only two with their last win coming back in 2005, incidentally against England. They had won by 22 runs; their last loss was also against England in 2022, where they lost the game by 26 runs.
Spinners have not been more effective than pacers in Multan, picking only 79 of the total 166 wickets to fall. Among all wickets, 90 i.e. nearly 55 percent, have gone to right-arm fast bowlers and England have only right-arm pacers in their attack.
Since there has been only one Test played at this venue this decade, it would be better to look at first-class records. Among Noman, Abrar and Agha, the trio has 20 wickets in Multan, but only Abrar averages in the 20s in the format here.
Thus, until and unless the wicket is pace-friendly, as suggested by stats with right-arm pacers being the most effective in five Tests, the likes of Naseem Shan might find themselves complaining about the pitch once again as he did in the series against Bangladesh.
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