There is no home advantage, no ready replacements for underperforming batters and the pace battery isn’t what it used to be. Is there hope?
Danyal Rasool28-Aug-2024Of course Pakistan should have been able to find a way to beat Bangladesh at home in the first Test, but that would only have papered over the cracks. They may yet level the series next week, and paper over at least some of them. Cheap momentary thrills and short memories often serve as an acceptable substitute for good policy in Pakistan cricket; it has only been too happy to market itself as the most entertaining, least predictable side. Nasser Hussain’s immortal proclamation of Pakistan cricket at its best being “one minute up, next minute down” may as well be Pakistan’s motto at this point; a rollercoaster ride, after all, may end up in the same place, but it is much more memorable than the buggy that takes you around the theme park.You might just be tempted to write off Pakistan’s first ever Test defeat against Bangladesh as one of those routine downward swings. Perhaps Pakistan’s defeat to USA at the T20 World Cup, and the failure to chase 120 against India, were a couple more of those. Maybe the defeat to Afghanistan and the thrashing against an enfeebled England that saw them exit the ODI World Cup at the earliest hurdle could also be attributed to those pendular swings.But, as Pakistan hurtle towards earth in the cheery belief the upswing is on its way, have they checked the parachute that pulls them back up is still there? In Test cricket at home, the foundation of any elite cricket side, Pakistan have forgotten what it takes to win entirely. The defeat to Bangladesh extended their winless run in their own backyard to nine Tests and three-and-a-half years. They don’t know how to prepare a pitch to their advantage, and seemingly don’t even know what team to play to get the best use of the surface that’s actually there.Related
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It is easy to call for an overhaul of the whole side or, as PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi somewhat tastelessly put it on Monday, to “slit the throats” of players who weren’t performing. Sticking to that operative theme, he had earlier been attributed as saying the Pakistan team needed “surgery” after their first-round exit at the T20 World Cup. By now, though, the high of the bombast was replaced by the sobriety of reality as he admitted there was nothing coming through the feeder system to replace the players who were struggling, acknowledging the somewhat obvious point that bringing through players who weren’t as good as the current ones would be unlikely to yield positive results.Pakistan fans have grown up on fairytales about how its chaotic, frenetic system managed to bring talent through simply because the country was brimming with it. It allowed them to be profligate with players in the belief new ones would just turn up to replace them. Fast bowlers, in particular, were handled like a spoilt rich child might treat their latest toy. Even if it breaks, they’ll simply get a new one.It also meant, more crucially, that the domestic structure was left to the whims and expediencies of political self-interest. The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, the premier domestic red-ball competition in Pakistan, has been tweaked and overhauled more times than anyone recalls. It has been bloated to accommodate departments, and shrunk to get rid of them. The pitches at all major centres in the country have often been overused, and prepared according to the whims of the day – green tops some seasons, rank turners in others.Bangladesh showed in Rawalpindi they read the conditions much better than the hosts•Associated PressIt is unsurprising, then, that, under the burden of the beating the domestic structure has taken, the system has finally begun to creak. Since Yasir Shah’s prominence has faded, Pakistan have raided the domestic system for a spinner of that ilk, and come up comprehensively empty-handed. Since December 2019 – when Test cricket returned to Pakistan – eight Asian spinners have taken over 50 Test wickets, three each from India and Sri Lanka, and two from Bangladesh, with Noman Ali’s 47 as good as it gets for Pakistan. Pakistan’s best averaging spinner at home in this time is Abrar Ahmed at 33.64; 12 spinners from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka can better that in this period.Couple that with pressing issues in the current team, and the bind Pakistan’s Test side are in begins to appear intractable. A loss of faith in Babar Azam’s captaincy ability saw them turn to Shan Masood. Pakistan captains lack authority because power, by its very structure, is consolidated at board level, but Masood’s struggle to score big runs since taking on the armband has only exacerbated those concerns.Babar’s own nosedive during this time is rather more alarming, while Abdullah Shafique, viewed as the most talented Pakistan top-order batter of his generation, averages just 27 in his last 19 innings, with 201 of his 513 runs coming in one innings. In last season’s Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Asad Shafiq were among the top three scorers, with no batter under the age of 25 in the top five. Twenty-two-year-old Muhammad Hurraira, who has been a consistent performer at that level in the past, is part of the squad, and may be expected to fill in, but with a domestic system as feeble as Pakistan’s how he copes with that step up is anybody’s guess.At this point, in desperate search of good news, the chatter is magnetically drawn to Pakistan’s fast bowling. When things get too dark, they keep the lights on in Pakistan cricket, so why don’t we talk about how that limitless supply of precocious talent should tide Pakistan over in tough times?Well, let’s. Ever since the days of Azhar Ali’s captaincy, when he spoke of how Yasir’s role in the Pakistan side would have to change as Test cricket returned home and catered more to fast bowling, Pakistan have tried to brand themselves as the home of pace-friendly pitches in Asia. It worked for a while, when a 16-year-old Naseem Shah famously took a hat-trick in Rawalpindi’s twilight, or during an absorbing Test series against South Africa where seamers from both sides were prolific.Shaheen Shah Afridi is not the bowler he used to be•AFP/Getty ImagesBut since Australia arrived on Pakistani shores in 2022, no nation has proved more inhospitable to fast bowling. Among all teams participating in the World Test Championship, seam bowlers in Pakistan average nearly five runs per wicket more than in any other country, getting a batter out for every 40.59 runs they concede. It prompted Naseem during the first Test to vent his frustrations at Pakistan’s inability to produce pitches that helped seamers; in his first Test innings since a long-term injury, he and his fast bowling counterparts sent down 117.3 overs.Meanwhile, Shaheen Shah Afridi, the jewel in Pakistan’s all-format pace-bowling crown, is now a shadow of his former self, especially in the longest format. Repetitive injuries have limited him to just nine Test matches since 2022, with his average pace rarely touching the 140km/h mark that was so routine in his earlier career. Even while his Australian counterparts made hay on pace-friendly surfaces in Perth and Melbourne, he averaged over 41 for his eight wickets, taking 2 for 96 in an equally indifferent showing last week.Add to that Haris Rauf’s reluctance to play the longer format, and Ihsanullah and Mohammad Hasnain’s persistent injury problems. Pakistan have instead turned to the medium fast pace of Khurram Shahzad and Mohammad Ali, unlikely to get much purchase on the lifeless pitches Pakistan seem to offer at present. With little by way of genuine red-ball quicks coming through, a quick fix appears elusive.It brings us to the nub of the problem: Pakistan’s defeat last week was only surprising in that it illustrated how quickly the rot has taken hold, and how far it has spread. Treating it as a shock understates the depth of a problem Pakistan perhaps haven’t yet even begun to acknowledge. There may indeed be no short-term fixes, but the PCB hasn’t exactly provided evidence they are working towards a long-term solution either. While there may be light at the end of the tunnel, it is hard to know, in the pitch black, if Pakistan are even walking towards it.