It was a pretty good week for fans outside of cricket’s so-called Big Three. In Dubai, West Indies sent England tumbling out of the Women’s T20 World Cup, then South Africa produced a remarkable demolition job on Australia and now meet New Zealand in Sunday’s final. In Bangalore, New Zealand’s men rolled India for a marmalade-dropping 46 all out, their lowest total in a home Test.
And in Multan, on a pitch refurbished in between Tests with the use of giant fans at either end, Pakistan secured a restorative victory over England - their first in 12 matches at home to set up a tantalising series decider in Rawalpindi next week.
All it took was dropping three poster boys, recalling two wily old spinners in Noman Ali and Sajid Khan, and Shan Masood winning the toss on this surface of diminishing returns. It was a gamble, no question, but still required a telling performance thereafter; the kind that offered the latest reminder of Pakistan’s ability to lurch from maelstrom to magnificent in the blink of an eye.
Statistically, England’s slump with the bat was also quite something. Shortly after tea on the second day of the second Test – day seven, if you will – they had scored 1,034 runs in the series for the loss of just nine wickets, ticking along at 5.4 runs an over. But after the deluge of records came something akin to Squid Game. The tourists lost 18 for 224 in just 59.3 overs as they largely tried to sweep their way out of trouble on a surface that, if not a full-blown minefield, had certainly become no man’s land by the end.
Unlike the Oval five weeks ago, where England phoned in a sloppy outing against Sri Lanka and blew their chance of a perfect home summer, this latest defeat was far less self-inflicted and so the philosophical outlooks of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum were not unreasonable.
Which is not to say it should be written off as simply the wrong side of a coin toss. Had they squeezed a bit more out of their first innings, and not dropped the catches that helped Salman Ali Agha add 71 runs with the tail, the final target, while still guaranteed to be a tough ask, would have been far lower.
Given Rawalpindi is one of the most soporific tracks on the circuit, evidenced by England’s mind-boggling win there two years ago, it will be interesting to see if the ground staff can issue a repeat prescription of heavy spin for the third Test.
Do so and things will open up further for Pakistan against an England team who, after that 4-1 defeat in India earlier this year, are clearly fallible when their aggression meets livelier conditions. Ollie Pope’s 196 in Hyderabad was an outlier at the time – he played 75 false shots, no other player survived more than 29 in the match – and has become increasingly so since.
It may be that for perhaps the first time under McCullum, belief slightly drained away during this Test, making way for a fatalistic view of the surface and that flurry of sweeps. Although given the shot’s past profitability, and the historical precedent that suggested their pursuit of 297 was always moonshot at best, they will be wary of an over-correction during the debrief. As Salman showed, proactivity was a better bet than poking around in survival mode, even if he did not get the broom out for every delivery.
An intriguing aspect of the wash-up was Stokes chastising himself. Not for the second-innings stumping when his bat flew off like Fred Astaire tossing his cane mid- routine, rather for losing his temper in the field when those two chances went down off Salman and denied the hugely impressive Brydon Carse.
Playing his first Test since tearing a hamstring in August, Stokes spent the bulk of it emitting uber-upbeat fumes for his players – broad smiles and bum pats fuelling what, overall, was another strong outing in the field – but felt he let himself and them down in that particular moment. That Stokes felt the need to apologise in the dressing room says a bit about his captaincy, which has been underpinned by an emotional intelligence that few predicted during his tearaway years.
One example came this summer when Shoaib Bashir spun England to victory against West Indies at Trent Bridge. Knowing Bashir would dominate the back pages the following morning, Stokes is said to have broken away from the celebrations to phone the overlooked Jack Leach and stress his importance to the setup. Right now, there are few captains more attuned to the feelings of their charges.
The greater challenge for Stokes – beyond continuing his comeback as a fully fledged all-rounder – is a personal one, having averaged 15 with the bat in his last 11 innings in Asia and found left-arm spin particularly vexing.
With England not scheduled to tour the subcontinent until Bangladesh in early 2027, this week’s third Test could easily be the 33-year-old’s last in this part of the world. If so, then addressing that barren streak and helping secure the series win would be a pretty handy way to sign off.
