In A Spin and Flat Track Bullies

England in Pakistan

Thoughts on the series between England and Pakistan

1.       In A Spin

On two pitches prepared to spin, England’s spin bowlers were undistinguished. In the second Multan and the only Rawalpindi Test Leach and Bashir took their wickets at 35 each on two very helpful pitches. It was the difference between the two teams. Bashir had a poor first Test too and ended the series with 9 wickets at almost 50 each. After a poor return in the series against Sri Lanka it is hard to avoid the suspicion that good players might not find Bashir all that hard to play. Leach has the better series but maybe Rehan Ahmed, who bowled well in his one opportunity, has gained the most.

2.       Select Few

Not many would have thought that dropping Babar Azam – the country’s best batsman – and Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah – the best regarded seam bowlers – would have worked so well. Into the bargain, the selectorial reach of the coach, Jason Gillespie, was curtailed. It looked for all the world like another selection fiasco in which Pakistan cricket specializes. Yet it wasn’t. It worked and triumphantly, so a word for the players who won their country the victory. Saud Shakeel’s restraint and discipline in his hundred in Rawalpinidi drew a fitting compliment from Brendon McCullum. Mohammad Rizwan kept wicket carefully and cleanly on a pitch that could not be trusted. Sajid Khan bowled with passion and guile and batted with gusto. He is such an energetic cricketer that it is hard to begrudge him the award of man of the series although Sajid himself said he would like it to have been shared with Noman Ali, the left arm spin bowler whose ease of approach to the crease and smooth economy of action when he arrives were a regular reminder of the world’s most beautiful bowler, Bishen Bedi.

3.       On Track

England are gaining a reputation for being flat-track bullies. This was a series in which Harry Brook scored a triple hundred and yet it has more or less been forgotten. That’s because it was scored on a pitch on which it was too easy to score runs. Racing to 800, as Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain said, didn’t really make very watchable cricket. As soon as the pitches became spicier England really struggled.

4.       Cheap Talk

The unequivocal support that Stokes and McCullum offer to their players is why their regime is so easy to come into. Brydon Carse was the latest debutant to perform well immediately. But, even so, they need to be careful not to sound delusional. McCullum’s claim that Zak Crawley “was brilliant for us” and his previous suggestion that Shaoib Bashir will be a world-class spin bowler are oddly unnecessary things to say. So too was Stokes’s over-emphatic claim that they definitely have “the top six batsmen in the country”. In fact, they don’t even have the top six batsmen in the England team. England’s number seven, Jamie Smith, is quite clearly a better batsman than at least some of the top six. As it is, the top six sound impregnable which, given the low returns of a couple of them, is beginning to sound implausible.  

5.       White Smoke

Ollie Pope is now one of only 4 batsmen to be given 50 Tests for England to average 33 or below. Two of the others are those parables for talent unfulfilled, Graham Hick and Mark Ramprakash. Is Pope destined to be ranked among them, as a man with a first-class average touching 50 who had his moments in Test cricket but who never became the player he promised to be? He is the vice-captain, indeed the captain during Ben Stokes’s increasingly common absences, so it is unlikely that Pope will be discarded lightly. Neither should he be, either. He is a fine player and England need Pope at his best. Perhaps, though, he is in the wrong place in the order. Pope does average 40 at number 3, which is better than anyone else of recent vintage (apart from Joe Root) but he doesn’t look a natural there. Surely, for the good of the team, Joe Root should be prevailed upon to move up a place, to number 3, from where he did, after all, make 262 in Multan. The case is simply this: Root-Brook-Pope would yield more than Pope-Root-Brook. Steven Finn made the same case on the TMS podcast and it is a good one.