Day 1 of Pakistan’s home season. A damp and gloomy monsoon morning in the Rawalpindi cricket stadium, with overnight rain. A strong tinge of green on the playing surface, far removed from the barren tracks that have become synonymous with the venue over the last couple of years.
Test cricket has made its way back to the cricket-mad nation after a lengthy hiatus of 20 months, and is accompanied by a proper roll of the dice by skipper Shan Masood. The top-order southpaw is set to captain Pakistan for the first time on home soil, on a wicket that has been billed as a green top.
Road. Highway. Tarmac. Autobahn.
Choose your fighter, and prepare to be destroyed by the monster that the Rawalpindi pitch has transformed into, since the end of South Africa’s tour of Pakistan in early 2021. An endless stream of runs, laced with the blood and tears of bowling aspirants – seam or spin.
That wasn’t always the case in this part of the country, however. From December 1993 to the end of 2021, batters averaged just 32.1 runs per dismissal in Rawalpindi. In the two Tests this ground has hosted since, batters averaged 57.94 runs per dismissal. Nearly 26 runs more than what it used to be. Batting milestones on sale, at record-breaking discounts.
| Period | Batting Average |
| 1993-2021 | 32.10 |
| 2022 onwards | 57.94 |
*Prior to the ongoing Test vs Bangladesh
A track where quicks were historically expected to get purchase and carry, the Rawalpindi surface has had its life sucked out of it by the timid vacuum of fear of failure. What if Pakistan folds against ferocious foreign seamers? Let’s remove that possibility entirely, by curating the flattest of decks. Babar Azam hundreds galore. Whoop-de-do.
The average of pacers in Rawalpindi has gone up from 29.3 runs per wicket till the start of 2022, to 50.6 since then. England and Australia were visiting, so at least the home team avoided defeat, right?
Agonizingly wrong.
| Period | Bowling Average |
| 1993-2021 | 29.30 |
| 2022 onwards | 50.60 |
*Prior to the ongoing Test vs Bangladesh
If England’s Bazballers have been the torchbearers of entertainment in recent times, Pakistan in home Tests, in that same period, have been inducing sleep amongst insomniacs. God’s work, in a way, but a ploy that has resulted in 8 winless Tests on home turf, in over two years. 4 draws and 4 losses across all four active Test centers in the country. Whitewashed in a Test series at home for the very first time, against red-hot disruptive England. Absolute shambles.
The home Test narrative has looked grim since Pakistan’s 2-0 series sweep over South Africa in 2021, and Shan Masood and Jason Gillespie seem to have had enough of it. They woke up and chose violence, requesting the curators for a spicy track, and opting to field a four-pronged pace attack in the first Test of the season.
In the last 28 years, only once before has Pakistan opted for the ‘no frontline spinner’ gamble in a home Test. As unsettling as that statistic sounds, the coach and captain smelled 20 wickets and felt confident in scalping them via this rogue scheme that they had devised.
In short, Dizzy and Shan have unsubscribed from the ‘let’s play it safe’ war plan, in the favour of result-oriented Test cricket. Quite evidently, Yorkshire’s current captain and former coach are here to have some fun.
As audacious as four pacers in Asia sounds, it’s not a strategy without any merit. Up until January 2022, Spinners averaged 39.92 runs per dismissal in Rawalpindi, which went up to 63.44 in the two Tests against Australia and England since then. Furthermore, tweakers were taking just 11 more deliveries to strike as opposed to before, from 85.6 to 96.5.
Seamers, on the other hand, were striking once in less than 10 overs from 1993 to 2022 in Rawalpindi, which went up to once every fourteen and a half overs from 2022 to 2024. Perhaps those were numbers that convinced the team management to go for an all-pace attack when they sat down to draw up a strategy to bowl Bangladesh out twice.
Something had got to give. You can not sell Test cricket to the masses through lifeless run-fests. Also, given Pakistan’s promising pace bowling stocks, one can expect the local fast bowlers to outdo their counterparts from Bangladesh.
Everything checks out theoretically, but as hip hop duo Outkast once put it, in their hit single Ms. Jackson:
“You can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather”
With the first 42 overs of the Test lost to a wet outfield, the surface continued to bake under the Rawalpindi sun for hours before the toss, which Najmul Hossain Shanto won, and unsurprisingly elected to field.
Turns out that you can’t predict the coin toss either, Outkast.
Enter Bangladesh’s new-ball pair of Shoriful Islam and Hasan Mahmud. Early inroads. Pressure. Pakistan reduced to 3 down for just 16 runs.
Hasan, with his right arm medium pace, got Abdullah Shafique to edge one to gully in his second over of the day, before Shoriful got Shan Masood out cheaply as a result of a controversial DRS call. The left-arm seamer then went on to send Babar Azam packing for a duck – his first duck ever in a home Test – as Pakistan’s worst nightmare started to come to life.
With the sun beaming down on a sluggish outfield, the home team recovered well, ending Day 1 on a score of 158, having lost just one further wicket. The conditions had eased for batting, and despite some hiccups against the new cherry, Pakistan were back in the game.
Saim Ayub and Saud Shakeel were the main protagonists of this rescue act, both scoring half-centuries, and the latter remaining unbeaten at Stumps. The scoring rate was brisk as well, which augurs well for the hosts.
So, is this the dawn of a new era? Potentially. One laden with victories? Too soon to say.
One thing is for certain though. Win or lose, there seems to be an active effort to move away from the dark days of unsporting belters and drab draws.
No one wishes to watch one-sided snooze-fests on placid pitches for 5 long days. 500 runs in just 3 sessions? No thanks.
Cricket enthusiasts deserve an even contest between bat and ball. Wickets with a splash of runs. Compelling phases of play. Both sides attempting to put pressure back on each other, in a constant exchange of calculated blows.
When you ensure all of the aforementioned, the result takes a back seat. It is also guaranteed, for the most part, weather permitting.
From a bird’s eye perspective, it seems that Pakistan have finally taken the first step towards figuring out a template to play Test cricket at home. They may well take some time to turn that template into triumph or to curate pitches to perfection, but the process has officially begun.
New season, new formula. Surely, this has to be a big part of what entails the ‘Pakistan Way’.
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