An even bigger selection headache for Pakistan
There’s a sense that both sides learned everything and nothing from a remarkable second Test. Pakistan’s winning formula – an all-spin attack running amok on a ninth-day pitch – will not be replicable in Rawalpindi, leaving their selectors pondering more gung-ho chopping and changing. Babar Azam, Naseem Shah and Shaheen Shah Afridi are too talented to be sidelined for long, and Naseem in particular might be needed in Rawalpindi. They also have an almost comically underperforming opening pairing to address, the trouble being that Abdullah Shafique and Saim Ayub are alternating between big scores and total failures, so whom to drop? Victory in Multan was a well-deserved tonic for an embattled cricketing nation but are we any the wiser about where they go from here?
Sweep with care
It’s hard to say which is the more cliched response to an England defeat in the Bazball era: curmudgeonly calls to put the fancy shots away and just Dig In, or a blithe insistence on trusting the process, doubling down on swinging with carefree abandon. You still have to play the match situation on its merits, though, and the tourists lost too many wickets this week through misapplied sweep shots. Few if any England teams have contained more accomplished sweepers of a cricket ball than this one, but too many attempts were made to hoik across the line in the second Test and on a ragging surface such as Multan’s, and with Sajid Khan and Noman Ali scenting blood, it proved ruinous. England need to be more judicious in their sweeping at Rawalpindi.
Pitch can offer something for everyone
Victory in Multan was Pakistan’s first in a home Test since an impressive win over South Africa early in 2021, when stars such as Babar Azam, Hasan Ali and Shaheen were at their peaks, and with international cricket newly returned to Pakistan soil after years of UAE exile, grounds for optimism seemed abundant. But Pakistan cricket’s turbulence has since returned with a vengeance, and England have probably the fonder memories now of this venue, the scene of that epic fast-scoring first-Test triumph two years ago, Bazball’s finest hour. Its pitch should, however, offer something for everyone, with both pace (Pakistan’s Khurram Shahzad, Bangladesh’s Hasan Mahmud) and spin (Mehidy Hasan) finding some reward in the two Tests played there in August and September. But Pakistan’s relatively callow spinners will need seamer support in Rawalpindi if they are to build on their second Test heroics, whoever is selected.
Should England rejig the top order?
Few teams have understood that Test cricket is now a squad game better than this England, aware as they are of the need to keep bowlers in particular fit and fresh. But could there be room for a little more rotation in the batting lineup? Ben Duckett aside, England’s top three have not fully fired on this tour, so might they benefit from a temporary shake-up? Why not take a punt and give Ollie Pope a rest (assuming Ben Stokes’s fitness issues don’t lumber the Surrey man with captaincy duties) and give Jordan Cox his overdue chance, perhaps at No 5 – he normally bats at 4 for Essex – and shunt Harry Brook or even Stokes up to No 3? Brendon McCullum talked on Sunday about giving Cox his chance as first-choice wicketkeeper in New Zealand but why not give his batting a go now?
Hype it up
The last time an England series in Asia of more than two Tests went to a proper decider, with the scores level, was way back in 2003, when they were thrashed in the third Test in Colombo by a Sri Lanka side of the Muralitharan/Jayawardene vintage, so this match in Rawalpindi deserves a big sell. You could see what ending their losing run meant to Pakistan, and it hopefully brings some extra spotlight to a series that has had everything – records, mind-boggling scores, unlikely heroes, a gripping tussle between bat and ball (in the second Test anyway) and engaging, positive cricket in general. So let’s hang out the bunting and give it some hype. It is perhaps a sign of our desperation as Test cricket aficionados that we tend to greet every halfway-gripping contest as proof that this is the “greatest sport in the world”. It is, of course, but we sometimes overcook it. However, with a fair wind and a cooperative surface, the third Test can provide fresh vindication for this embattled hobby of ours.
